Left Foot on Traditional Literacy, and Right, on Transliteracy

Recently, Cosmopolitan English and Transliteracy won the 2018 Research Impact Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), the largest international organization that specializes in the teaching and studies of composition. This recognition seems to signal a turn to transliteracy education, i.e., English writing education should embrace a vision and actual pedagogical practices of cultivating citizens of the world who use English ethically. The purposes of this article are threefold: to define transliteracy, to provide illustrative studies, and to propose its application in foreign language contexts. The author suggests that in designing innovative programs sensitive to various English styles teachers need to strike a balance between traditional literacy and transliteracy. New ways of implementing such literacies in some alternate space, as mediated by modern communication technologies, especially the Internet, are provided.