Translation as (Global) Writing

This article explores translation as a useful point of departure and frame- work for taking a translingual approach to writing engaging globalization. Globalization and the knowledge economy are putting renewed emphasis on translation as a key site of contest between a dominant language ideology of monolingualism aligned with fast capitalist neoliberalism and an emerging language ideology variously identified as translingualism, plurilingualism, translanguaging, and transcultural literacy. We first distinguish between theories of translation aligned with neoliberalism, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a critical approach to translation focused on the difference that a translingual approach insists translation makes to languages, language relations, and language users. We then describe ways that a translingual approach to language difference in writing can be pursued in the classroom through student experimentation with translation of ordinary texts and with paraphrase and interpretation. Treating all writing as translation, we argue, can help students and their teachers better engage with language difference as a feature of all writing rather than imagining such engagement to fall outside the norm of communicative practice