Lecturers’ translanguaging practices in English-taught lectures in Turkey

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study investigating lecturers’ translanguaging practices in English medium instruction (EMI) courses in a Turkish higher education setting. Specifically, a comprehensive investigation of the functions of translanguaging used by lecturers was conducted following Lo’s and Sahan and Rose’s frameworks, which propose pedagogical and social and affective functions. Eighteen hours of EMI lectures from eight different classes were video recorded. The findings demonstrate that lecturers and students used translanguaging mainly for content transmission (a pedagogical function subcategory) by translating technical terminology, presenting new content, and asking and/or answering content-related questions. The lecturers also used translanguaging to encourage student participation and for social and affective functions, such as establishing rapport. These functions have also been observed in previous studies in various EMI settings; however, our analyses highlighted new context-specific differences. This study elaborates these innovative differences, as well as the pedagogical implications of these original findings.