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Article published In:
Literacies in Contact
Edited by Manuela Böhm and Constanze Weth
[Written Language & Literacy 23:2] 2020
► pp. 214–231

From the oral-literate debate to the translanguaging paradigm – and back again

A German perspective on multilingual writing strategies

| Universitat de Barcelona
| University of Osnabrück

For several years now, the current debates on multilingualism and multi­literacy have revolved around the concept of translanguaging. In our paper we aim to contribute to the debate by presenting two theoretical approaches that have fueled the debate in the German-speaking academic context over the last thirty years and bringing them to the attention of an international readership. In discussing the analysis of written data of multilingual speakers from an acquisition perspective, we wish to demonstrate the fascinating aspects these works can contribute.

Keywords: literacy, oracy, translanguaging, multilingualism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Immediacy/distance vs. orate/literate
  • 3.Taking on the written language challenge by young and by adult learners
  • 4.Recent contributions to the concept of language mixing
  • 5.Scribal practice and Ausbau in the multilingual classroom
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Literature
Published online: 2 February 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00041.mun
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