ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the use of translation in primary classrooms and distinguishes translation from the concept of translanguaging. The authors begin by tracing the historical role that translation has had in language education around the world. Translanguaging, with a much shorter intellectual history, rests on a different epistemology than that of translation. Whereas translation bridges cultures and languages, translanguaging dwells in the entanglements of cultures and languages and makes power differentials visible. To draw a distinction between the two concepts, the authors present examples of teachers in translanguaging primary classrooms who use translation differently from teachers who use translation just to promote the children’s intercultural communication with language that is ‘appropriate’ for the other group. Instead, teachers in translanguaging primary classrooms use translation as a strategy to empower bilingual children so that they use their unitary semiotic repertoire to make meaning for themselves as minoritized beings, and thus develop their agency as bilingual subjects. These teachers are not looking for ways of saying things in the language of the other, but in the children’s own language and through the children’s own experiences and lives. The authors conclude by identifying future directions of translation and translanguaging studies in the primary classroom.