Publications

All bilinguals are subjected to alteration in their L1, because they do not use it or due to the influence of other dominant language. Language acquisition trajectory is featured by a traditional language isolation context, where due to globalization, foreign language is increasingly gaining relevance. This also provokes reservations about the danger of bilinguals not attaining adequate communicative skills in the L1 (Cenoz & Gorter, 2017). However, the construction of meaning seems to be featured by the interchange of different modes that flow in social intercommunication (Kress, Jewitt, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2014).The present revision of previous investigations on translanguaging and multimodality leads us to comprehending the relationship between translanguaging and multimodality within the multicompetence perspective (MC). This describes language as a multisensory and multimodal semiotic system associated with other recognizable cognitive systems that cannot be separated (Wei, 2016).The overriding concept of translanguaging (García & Wei, 2014) conveys the integration of various languages in discourse. Furthermore, from the MC perspective, the use of different languages is understood as an acculturation process (Wei, 2016). Albeit the coexistence of various languages is the norm, their representation is uneven. This fact together with the impact of other languages on the L1 is what underlies language attrition. The supposition that bilingualism relates to the speaker’s whole mind explains how the development also occurs within his/her entire linguistic repertoire (Seton & Schmid, 2016). Thus, translanguaging can be understood as a benefit for minoritised languages, protecting them by not isolating them from others (Othegui, García, & Reid, 2015). In this respect, Cenoz and Gorter (2017) pose some principles to achieve a sustainable translanguaging for regional minority languages.This contribution tries to shed light on how our Translingual Instinct (Wei, 2018) as part of multimodality, within the MC perspective, may endow L1 communicative skills with the wealth of the whole communicative repertoire.ReferencesCenoz, J. & Gorter, D. (2017). Minority languages and sustainable translanguaging: threat or opportunity? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(10), 901-902.García, O. & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: language, bilingualism and education. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Kress G., Jewitt, C., Ogborn, J. & Tsatsarelis, C. (2014). Multimodal teaching and learning: The rhetorics of the science classroom (2nd ed.). New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Otheguy, R., García, O. & Reid, W. (2015). Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 6(3), 281-307.Seton, B. & Schmid, M. S. (2016). Language attrition and multicompetence. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multi-competence (pp. 338-354). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wei, L. (2016). Epilogue: Multi-competence and the Translanguaging Instinct. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multi-competence (pp. 198-215). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wei, L. (2018). Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language. Applied linguistics, 39(1), 9-30.