FH Distinguished Lecture Series - Translanguaging as a practical theory of language: implications for language learning and research

Abstract
The talk reviews the development of the concept of Translanguaging, and focuses on its potential as a theory of language and language practice. The implications of Translanguaging as a theoretical perspective for researching language learning, language use and language policy will be explored in detail with examples from a wide range of contexts. Connections with current theories of distributed cognition, multimodality and social semiotics will be discussed.

About the Speaker
Li Wei is Chair of Applied Linguistics and Director of the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics, at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London (UCL), UK. His research interests are in the broad areas of bilingualism and multilingualism, including language development and disorder of bilingual and multilingual children, social and cognitive processes of bilingual and multilingual practices, and bilingual education. His recent publications include Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education (with Ofelia Garcia, 2014) which won the 2015 British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Book Prize, The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Multi-Competence (with Vivian Cook, 2016), shortlisted for the 2017 BAAL Book Prize. He is Principal Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism and Applied Linguistics Review, and book series editor for Wiley-Blackwell’s Research Methods in Language and Linguistics. He was an assessor on the Education sub-panel for REF2014, a member of ESRC’s grant assessment panel for Psychology, Linguistics and Education between 2010 and 2015, and Chair of the UniversityCouncil of General and Applied Linguistics, UK between 2002 and 2005. He is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), UK.