Commentary: the complex nexus between (im)mobility and translanguaging

Abstract

Abstract Translanguaging has now become central to a sociolinguistics that foregrounds globalization and mobility as key concepts for grasping human beings’ capacity to engage with and draw on both multiple linguistic – including named languages – and semiotic resources dynamically and in combination for the purpose of meaning-making (García, Ofelia & Wei Li. 2014. Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. New York: Palgrave/McMillan; Li, Wei. 2018. Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39(1). 9–30). The contributions collected here testify to the growing importance of translanguaging as a theory and practice within contexts of unprecedented mobility, namely educational and work environments, bringing to light processes of circulation of linguistic and semiotic resources across both physical and digital spaces involving the development of communicative practices as well as subjectivities and identities.