Using Spanish In English-Language Spaces: Identifying Bilingual Composition Students\u27 Translanguaging Practices

This Dissertation is a qualitative study that uses ethnographic research methods to examine the translanguaging practices of bilingual students in first-year composition at a university along the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, I observe how and why bilingual students employ translanguaging practices, as they are encouraged or invited by their instructors, in contexts where English Standard Language policies exist. The results of this qualitative project demonstrate bilingual students\u27 use of translation as part of their translanguaging practices, as well as a tool that uncovers students\u27 writing processes which also demonstrates their language negotiation. Furthermore, the students\u27 translanguaging practices reveal the rhetorical use of language and bilinguals\u27 agentic role. Findings also show that there are also firmly established ideologies that prevent bilingual students from realizing the benefits of translanguaging. Understanding bilingual students\u27 translanguaging practices can aid in remapping and enhancing institutional policies and pedagogical practices and move in a positive direction toward adopting more inclusive approaches that honor students\u27 linguistic repertoires and their cultural backgrounds, and thus, gradually reorienting standard language ideology