“Negativo por negativo me va dar un… POSITIvo”: Translanguaging as a Vehicle for Appropriation of Mathematical Meanings

Abstract

This chapter captures Ofelia García’s (Bilingual education in the 21st century: a global perspective. Wiley-Blackwell Pub, Malden/Oxford, 2009) concept of translanguaging and examines its presence in the teaching and learning processes of a seventh-grade mathematics classroom. Recently, some scholars, who explore language as a tool for learning, have taken the concept of translanguaging as a positive pedagogical tool in bilingual and bicultural classrooms. By looking at discourse as it naturally occurs in the classroom, this paper shows how translanguaging practices are being employed as a vehicle for appropriation of mathematical meanings. Drawing from sociocultural theories of learning and development (Vygotsky LS, Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978), the community of practice approach (Lave J, Wenger E, Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991), and Discourse and discourse analysis (Gee JP, Social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses. Routledge, New York, 2008, Gee JP, An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and method. Routledge, New York, 2011b), this chapter portrays how a bilingual teacher and his bilingual Latina/o students engage in interactional activities in which they make use of translanguaging Discourses to co-construct mathematical understandings. Findings are grouped into two intertwined main categories: (1) translanguaging as a pedagogical tool that supports appropriation of mathematical meanings, and (2) translanguaging as a linguistic practice that allows fluidity and movement of the teaching and learning process.