The Application of Translingualism to Language Revitalisation in Taiwan: Advanced Study

Translingualism is a term from Steven G. Kellman [1] and David Schwarzer et al. [2], who see
teaching an L2 as bridge building between languages that allow one to retain a unified mind and not
be cloven into two for the sake of being multilingual. Thus, in contrast to multilingualism,
translingualism stresses the process and not the goal. Classrooms where students come from two or
more different language communities are established feature of schools in many countries. When
multilingual word processing enables ethnolinguistic communities and students to express the funds
of knowledge they possess, the school is truly preparing students to thrive in a global community
characterized by rapid cultural and technological change. If translingualism is the process, then Action
research (AR) is its method. This study explores the sociolinguistics of translingual forces: (1) how
classroom experience or actual personal contact with elders in villages causes students of different
cultural backgrounds to value other languages and (2) how students’ phonetic knowledge, literacy, as
well as content knowledge in English may transfer to acquiring ethnic languages in a collaborative
classroom. It mostly examines how the students in a community of Taiwan hailing from different
cultural backgrounds and attending multilingual classrooms that promoted bi/multilingualism can come
to value all languages spoken in a community.