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

Abstract

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.