ABSTRACT
This paper looks at the obstacles that can emerge when translanguaging pedagogies are introduced in a conflict-affected context with strong ethnonational ideologies. Drawing on ethnographic data from a multilingual and highly diverse Greek-Cypriot primary school, this study examines how language ideologies and conflict histories affect the ways in which Turkish-speakerness is manifested or silenced in classroom interaction. It shows that Turkish-speaking students responded with considerable resistance to their teacher’s attempt to encourage translanguaging practices by integrating the use of Turkish in class, aware of the effect of speaking that language on their presumed identification as ‘being Turkish’. Overlapping historical trajectories and different language ideologies may thus create unfavourable ecologies for particular linguistic practices. For this reason, rather than viewing fluid linguistic practices as inherently liberating, we argue that it is essential to draw the historical and ideological context into consideration in any analysis of classroom interaction.
