Curricular Insights into Translingualism as a Communicative Competence

Abstract

Translingual communicative competence remains underreported within recent research on multilingualism and plurilingualism. The outcomes of the MULTICOM curriculum development project, a European thematic network in multilingual communication aimed at providing university students with the translingual and transcultural skills needed to operate effectively at an international professional level, provide insights into the profile of translingualism as a communicative competence. The teaching and learning materials created to accompany the proposed curriculum framework reveal a significant departure from academic traditions in which language teaching has tended to neglect translingualism and the impact of multilingual settings in the interpretation of information. As discussed throughout the paper, rethinking the purpose of tasks and materials allows for awareness training, without which translingual communicative competence cannot be achieved. However, the implementation of an ecology-of-language approach to enhance plurilingualism and pluriculturalism requires rethinking the strategies that make for successful communication in multilingual settings and the definition of a translingual CEF in which partial competence and semilingualism is addressed.