Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.

Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Translanguaging in World Language Higher Education

Alessia Barbici-Wagner, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Abstract

Increased global migration and a myriad of other social and political factors has made today’s universities more diverse than ever. As a result, teachers in higher education regularly find multilingual learners from a variety of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in their classrooms and must consider this diversity in their teaching. One of the ways that teaching can better serve today’s multilingual and multicultural student population is through translanguaging. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the intentional and unintentional use of translanguaging by multilingual language learners and world language instructors in higher education. Additionally, this qualitative case study aims to explore the perceptions of both teachers and students towards translanguaging, using transformative interviewing to prompt participants to reflect on their own language learning ideologies and the application of translanguaging pedagogies to their teaching and learning. Findings point to numerous ways in which both teachers and students in world language university classrooms use translanguaging to make meaning during their language teaching and learning experiences. In addition, class observations and transformative interviews showed how participants gained reflective self-awareness and began to reconsider more/different ways in which translanguaging could enrich their teaching and learning. The significance of the study lies in a greater understanding of what translanguaging could look like in world language higher education settings, particularly regarding the way in which more inclusive language pedagogies such as translanguaging can allow teachers to recognize and utilize the full linguistic repertoire of their multilingual students while at the same time navigating tensions related to target language use and time constraints.

Subject Area

Education|Language|Linguistics|Bilingual education

Recommended Citation

Barbici-Wagner, Alessia, "Translanguaging in World Language Higher Education" (2023). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI30486842.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI30486842

Share

COinS