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Article In: Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts: Online-First Articles

Convivial public signage as translanguaging spaces of otherwise

Enacting linguistic citizenship for the designs of the pluriverse

ORCiD logo with link | Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia
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Abstract
Language contact in a superdiverse linguistic ecology like Indonesia has become a mundane phenomenon. This sociolinguistic situation opens the possibility for the creation of public space as an ethnic space where language users shuttle and translanguage in daily communicative practices. This article focuses on examining translanguaging practices where local languages are meshed with Indonesian and English. Drawing on the notions of ‘spaces of otherwise’ and ‘linguistic citizenship’, it theorizes translaguaging practices in a convivial public signage to see how language users (re) construct spaces of otherwise for the designs of the pluriverse. The article argues that everyday translanguaging practices can be considered as a deployment of everyday politics of linguistic citizenship from situated ecologies of knowledges and as an act of linguistic disobedience that overtly resists linguistic hierarchization. From the vantage point of a politics of convivial everydayness, translanguaging is not just a strategic transpositioning of multilingual speakers’ translingual identity, but more importantly as the designs of the pluriverse articulated in their relative locus of enunciation.
Abstrak
Kontak bahasa di ekologi linguistik yang sangat beragam merupakan fenomena yang lazim. Situasi sociolinguistik semacam ini membuka peluang untuk penciptaan wadah publik atau wadah etnis yang memungkinkan penutur bahasa melintas dari satu bahasa ke bahasa lain daalm praktik komunikasi sehari-hari. Artikel ini mengkaji praktik lintas bahasa dimana bahasa lokal melebur dengan bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Inggris. Dengan menggunakan konsep ‘spaces of otherwise’ and ‘linguistic citizenship,’ artikel ini berusaha menteorikan praktik lintas bahasa di penanda-penanda yang terdapat di tempat umum untuk mengetahui bagaimana penutur me(re)konstruksi ‘spaces of otherwise’ dalam perancangan keragaman semesta. Penulis berpendapat bahwa praktik keseharian lintas bahasa merupakan penerapan politik keseharian ‘linguistic citizenship’ dari ekologi pengetahuan tertentu dan merupakan tindakan ketidakpatuhan linguistik yang menolak hirarki linguistik. Dari sudut tinjau konvivial politik keseharian, praktik lintas bahasa tidak hanya sekadar merupakan transposisi strategies identitas translingual penutur multilingual, tetapi juga sebagai rancangan keragaman semesta yang diartikulasikan di ‘locus of enunciation’ tertentu.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A sociolinguistic snapshot of superdiverse Indonesia
  • 3.Translanguaging as a practical theory of language
  • 4.Focusing on convivial language practices in spaces of everydayness: Toward spaces of otherwise
  • 5.Research Context
  • 6.Methodology
  • 7.Translanguaging spaces of otherwise: Linguistic citizenship and the designs of the pluriverse
  • 8.Discussion and conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
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