Research in the Teaching of English Feb 2025

Heteroglossia and Community Translanguaging in an English-Medium Classroom: Multilingual Elementary Students’ Use of Multiple Voices in Digital Texts

Lindsey W. Rowe Clemson University

Abstract

This paper draws on Bakhtins notion of heteroglossia to expand theorizations of community translanguaging. Ethnographic and practitioner inquiry methods are used to explore the multiple voices that multilingual elementary students adopted and adapted in their digital, translingual texts. Findings illustrate how children drew from multiple voices, including popular media, family collective memories, the school/teacher, peers, and heritage languages, and how they used those voices to recontextualize ideologies about language, literacy, and schooling and to participate in the social and academic work of the classroom. Implications for emerging theorizations of community translanguaging as well as design of more equitable pedagogical practices for multilingual learners are discussed.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2025-02-01
DOI
10.58680/rte2025593367
Open Access
Closed
Topics
multimodality translingualism multilingual writers voice and style

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Mirra et al. (2025)
    Editors’ Introduction: Freedom is a Strong Seed: Transforming Civics through En…
    Research in the Teaching of English

Cites in this index (2)

  1. Ríos et al. (2017)
    Translanguaging, Coloniality, and English Classrooms: An Exploration of Two Bic…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Ranker (2007)
    Designing Meaning with Multiple Media Sources: A Case Study of an Eight-Year-Ol…
    Research in the Teaching of English
Also cites 35 works outside this index ↓
  1. Abraham (2022)
    Autores Fuertes: Practices of a community translingual repertoire
    The Reading Teacher  ↗
  2. Axelrod (2018)
    “The pumpkins are coming...vienen las calabazas ...that sounds funny”: Translanguaging pr…
    Journal of Early Childhood Literacy  ↗
  3. Bakhtin (1986)
    Speech genres and other late essays
     ↗
  4. Bauer (2020)
    “You can talk in es-pagñol”: An ethnographic case study of an African-American emergent b…
    Reading Psychology  ↗
  5. Bengochea (2018)
    An emergent bilingual child’s multimodal choices in sociodramatic play
    Journal of Early Childhood Literacy  ↗
  6. Blackledge (2014)
    Heteroglossia as practice andpedagogy
     ↗
  7. Bloome (2009)
    Learning over time: Uses of intercontextuality, collective memories, and classroom chrono…
    Language and Education  ↗
  8. Carr (2000)
    Technological affordance, social practice and learning narratives in an early childhood setting
    International Journal of Technology and Design Education  ↗
  9. Duarte (2020)
    Translanguaging in the context of mainstream multilingual education
    International Journal of Multilingualism  ↗
  10. Duran (2017)
    “You not die yet”: Karenni refugee chidlren’s language socialization in a video gaming co…
    Linguistics and Education  ↗
  11. Flores (2015)
    Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and language diversity in education
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  12. Galante (2022)
    Translanguaging drama: Embracing learners’ perezhivanie for embodiment of the repertoire
    International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingual-ism  ↗
  13. García (2020)
    Translanguaging and literacies
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  14. García (2014)
    Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education
     ↗
  15. García (2020)
    10.4324/9781003003670-2
    Translanguaging and transformative teaching for emergent bilingual students  ↗
  16. García (2011)
    Pedagogies and practices in multilingual classrooms: Singularities in pluralities
    The Modern Language Journal  ↗
  17. Genesee, (2001)
    Bilingual first language acquisition: Exploring the limits of the language faculty
    Annual Review of Applied Linguistics  ↗
  18. Hornberger (2012)
    Translanguaging in today’s classrooms: A biliteracy lens
    Theory Into Practice  ↗
  19. Juffermans (2013)
    Introduction to the special issue: Analyzing voice in educational discourses
    Anthropology & Education Quarterly  ↗
  20. Kenny (2011)
    A mixed blessing: Karen resettlement to the United States
    Journal of Refugee Studies  ↗
  21. Khote (2019)
    Translanguag-ing in culturally sustaining systemic functional linguistics: Developing a h…
    Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts  ↗
  22. Kim (2021)
    Conceptualizing community trans-languaging through a family literacy project
    International Multilingual Research Journal  ↗
  23. Kim (2019)
    Designing a community translanguaging space within a family literacy project
    The Reading Teacher  ↗
  24. Kiramba (2017)
    Translanguaging in the writing of emergent multilinguals
    International Multilingual Research Journal  ↗
  25. Li (2022)
    Not a first language but one repertoire: Translanguag-ing as a decolonizing project
    RELC Journal  ↗
  26. Martínez-Roldán (2015)
    Trans-languaging practices as mobilization of linguistic resources in a Spanish/English b…
    International Multilingual Research Journal  ↗
  27. (1996)
    A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  28. Paris (2012)
    Culturally sustaining peda-gogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice
    Educational Researcher  ↗
  29. Pennycook (2017)
    Translanguaging and semiotic assemblages
    International Journal of Multilingualism  ↗
  30. Ranker (2009)
    Student appropriation of writing lessons through hybrid composing practices: Direct, diff…
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  31. Rowe (2018)
    Say it in your language: Supporting translanguaging in multilingual classes
    The Reading Teacher  ↗
  32. Rowe, (2019a)
    Constructing language ideologies in a multilingual, second-grade classroom: A case study …
    Linguistics and Education  ↗
  33. Rowe, (2019b)
    Emergent bilingual students’ translation practices during ebook composing
    Bilingual Research Journal  ↗
  34. Rymes (2012)
    Recontextualizing You-Tube: From macro-micro to mass-mediated communicative repertoires
    Anthropology & Education Quarterly  ↗
  35. Smith (2020)
    Emergent bilingual students and digital multimodal composition: A systemic review of rese…
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 1 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Research in the Teaching of English Aug 2013
    Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment ↗
    A. Suresh Canagarajah
    multimodality translingualism multilingual writers voice and style
  2. Research in the Teaching of English Nov 2025
    “No Todo Lo Que Pintan Es Real”: Feminista Pláticas toward Speculative Civic Literacies in the Borderlands ↗
    Rita Kamani-Renedo
    translingualism multilingual writers voice and style
  3. Research in the Teaching of English Aug 2025
    Broadening the Construction of Personhood in Literacy Instruction with Multilingual Paraprofessional Teachers and Students ↗
    Faythe Beauchemin; Rebecca Carpenter de Cortina
    multimodality translingualism multilingual writers
  4. Written Communication Apr 2025
    Translanguaging Space Construction in Five Chinese EFL Learners’ Collaborative English-Language Culture-Introduction Videos: Patterns and Influential Factors ↗
    Xuehua Fu; Lawrence Jun Zhang
    multimodality social media translingualism multilingual writers
  5. Written Communication Jan 2025
    Getting to “the Upper End of the Novice Zone”: An Exploration of Doctoral Students’ Writer Identity in Coauthoring With Supervisors for Publication ↗
    Jiayu Wang; Cassi Liardét
    qualitative research multimodality multilingual writers voice and style affect and writing