A Translanguaging and Multimodal Approach to Video-Mediated 'Street Language Learning'

This chapter intends to provide an integrated framework that combines translanguaging (García and Li 2014;) and multimodality (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996; Norris 2004; Baldry and Thibault 2006; Bateman 2008) to analyse video-mediated interaction (VMI) in CALL scenarios. Multimodal theories of semiosis in communication have developed models that expand language-centred theories by considering all the semiotic resources that come into play in interaction on the same status – therefore not necessarily foregrounding language. The semiotic resources in VMI, e.g., speech, writing, gaze, kinesics, proxemics and embodied interaction, are accounted for to unveil their specific contribution to overall meaning making (Sindoni 2013 and 2019). Multimodal approaches, however, do not typically focus on the role played by the different linguistic repertoires of speakers in interaction, as language/s and/or variety/ies are perceived as a unified form of semiosis. Conversely, translanguaging, as a “practical theory of language” (Li 2018) focuses on the orchestration of the speakers’ entire multilingual and multimodal repertoire which transcends named boundaries (Ho and Li 2019). With the aim of investigating how translanguaging can be fruitfully combined with social semiotics and multimodality in CALL scenarios, we will select and discuss in the chapter one VMI case study so as to 1) illustrate the implications for CALL environments and beyond and 2) provide guidelines on possible applications gained from these insights.