Translingual and Decolonial Approaches to Meaning Making

When the languages and categories begin to be activated in order to build a world in which many worlds will co-exist, by social actors aiming at de-colonization of knowledge and being and of de-linking from the imperial modernity, the splendors of human imagination and creativity will open up.-Walter Mignolo "Delinking" p. 498I open with this inspirational quote from Walter Mignolo because it begs the question, to what extent might translingual approaches to language teaching and learning allow for pluriversal splendors of human imagination and creativity to open up? This question stems from the problems of linguistic and social hierarchy that index imperialist legacies central to the history of the United States generally and manifested in composition and rhetoric specifically: how can teachers and scholars move beyond the presumption that English is the only language of knowledge making and learning? This is an exciting question, one that is premised on the understanding that "languages are not something human beings have but what human beings are" (Tlostanova and Mignolo 61). In many respects, this understanding of language provides a connection to identity and being in the world that resonates with Lu and Horner's understanding, as described in their introduction to this special issue, of translingual approaches to composition as performative, transformative, ideological, context bound, and indicative of difference as the norm. If languages are something human beings are, then it behooves scholars and teachers to consider seriously what methodological and pedagogical possibilities for decolonizing knowledge translingualism can potentially offer.Translingual approaches can work at the level of paradigm to hasten the process of revealing and potentially transforming colonial matrices of power that maintain hierarchies of knowledges and languages (see Mignolo Darker Side of Western Modernity for more on colonial matrices of power). Translingual approaches can also work at the level of pedagogy wherein students' languages and categories of understanding can be expressed in the classroom in ways that allow these knowledges and practices to persevere.In this essay, I define three key aspects of translingual approaches to composition and rhetoric that can potentially involve scholars and students in meaning making that attempts to level linguistic and knowledge hierarchies that always indicate imperialist legacies of thought and deed. As it stands now, translingualism can be defined as those meaning making processes that involve students and scholars in translanguaging, translating, and dwelling in borders. These three epistemological and pedagogical moves imagine translingual approaches to meaning making that might further epistemic delinking and border thinking (Mignolo "Delinking"). Such delinking efforts have sewn the seeds of pluriversal realities within composition studies, realities that could well change both the disciplinary and pedagogical tenets and content of the field. In the future, translingual approaches can continue to develop these and more decolonial possibilities through research and teaching that are dedicated to leveling the social, epistemic, semiotic, and linguistic hierarchies that (de)humanize us all.LANGUAGINGWith its focus on language as performance that relies on making visible the multiple choices, values, and historical importance of registers and forms, translanguaging centers on making visible the structuring principles that stage the instrumental, historical, and cultural values and practices associated with each tool selected when meaning making (Lu and Horner). The focus here is on the performance and instrumentality of meaning making, as these contribute to agency and power relations, a focus which begins the work of unveiling colonial matrices of power.Elsewhere, the translingual approach has taken up Paul Matsuda's challenge to the field to move beyond the monolinguistic assumption of English as the most important, primary language to which all other languages are subordinate ("Myth"). …