ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces translanguaging understood as interlingual selection across languages. It examines an interpreted and mediated interaction from a legal advice session, in which a relative of the client interprets/mediates between Lingala and English, while the lawyer speaks only English. Translanguaging is liable to be “noticed” by monolingual or boundaried bilingual language ideologies, for example in classrooms where “English only” is the norm: noticed and sanctioned. Translanguaging between and across different named languages is the unmarked case, and almost all that is written about translanguaging assumes the strategic deployment of different languages in the repertoire. In the case of Klara, the institution in question, which loomed large in her interpreting practice, is the Department of Work and Pensions and the constitution of the benefits system. It often seems as if Klara is better informed than the advocates themselves and is able to step in with detailed information about some procedure which the advocate lacks.
