Reconciling Translingualism and Second Language Writing: Book Review

Abstract

Translingualism, which concerns the freedom to use different languages and use them for different purposes (Horner & Alvarez, 2019), has recently become a trendy topic in language education. Despite the fresh perspectives brought by translingualism, some disputes have emerged regarding how this concept could coexist alongside scholarship in second language writing (SLW). A group of L2 writing studies scholars even expressed their concern over the misunderstanding that translingual writing would replace SLW (Atkinson et al., 2015). Given this, the book is a timely volume that revisits and reconciles the tension between scholars of translingualism and SLW. The purpose of this book, as stated by the authors, is to achieve a constructive and productive interaction between the two entities, thereby improving the L2 writing instruction practice in multilingual classrooms.