Translingual Practices of Multilingual International Student Writers in the U.S. Academic Context

Communication and academic interactions in U.S. higher institutions of learning have traditionally adhered to monolingual ideologies. Examining the role of multimodality and translingual practices within its sociolinguistic and discursive context is increasingly becoming essential. While previous studies have explored the flow of non-mainstream languages for literacy and communicative purposes, there is a need for more research on how multilingual international student writers navigate challenges within the U.S. academic landscape and engage with dominant discourses and audiences. The study examines the translingual practices of multilingual international student writers in a southeastern university in the U.S. and the discursive strategies they employ for sense-making practice for their audience. The data for this study were gathered from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with four multilingual international student writers from different disciplines—three participants in language-related academic domains, including composition studies, creative writing, and literature, and one from an educational research field at a southeastern U.S. university and analyzed within the purview of translingual orientation to literacy, language, and communication (Canagarajah, 2013a; Horner et al., 2011). The findings in this study reveal that the major challenge of multilingual international student writers in the U.S. academic context is tied to the resistance of the dominant discourse to the expression of their autobiographical selfhood (the part of their identity as writers that is bound up with their prior ecological and literacy experiences). However, through code-meshing, defamiliarization, and negotiation strategies (such as providing contextualization cues in their textual products), they explore hybridization in their textual products while reshaping essentialized notions to literacy practices and events. Further, the study found that multilingual international student writers treat literacy, the U.S. academic context, and their linguistic resources as evolutionary and emergent. The findings suggest increased awareness of the evolving sociolinguistic landscape against which literacy practices are performed, which accounts for the inevitability of translingual practices in the U.S. mainstream discursive practices. Further, it advocates for gatekeepers of academic writing and disciplinary conventions to trust the emergent and evolutionary nature of language as well as the values of translingual literacy in every form of communicative practice.