Consider the above excerpt taken from Wei (2017, p. 5).

Do you think the notion of translanguaging

has disrupted the idea of named languages (e.g., English, Chinese, Malay, amongst other)? Defend
your arguments!

Yes, the translingual practice has disrupted the idea of named languages. This argument can be
supported by examining the following reasons.

 The epistemological shift from structuralist view to poststructuralist one

The shift from structuralist assumptions to poststructuralist orientations considers language

mobile, expansive, situated, and holistic practices (Canagarajah, 2018b). This notion challenges
language as a self-defining and closed structure, apart from spatiotemporal ‘context’, which
include diverse considerations such as history, geography, politics, and society. Consequently,
the idea of named languages is not relevant under this circumstance.

 The socio-political dimension of named languages

Wei (2018) noted that naming languages is a recent phenomenon. It was the product of nation-
state building that was popular in the last century when colonized countries gained
independence. For this sake, a government felt obliged to establish the territory’s linguistic
norms and conventions (Wright, 2004). However, the sociological and historical realities show
that languages do not work as planned by the government. Throughout history, humans
established their languages, consisting of sounds, gestures, icons, symbols, etc., and gradually
diversified and diffused due to climate change and beliefs (Wei, 2018). They built their speech
communities that shared a common set of communicative practices and beliefs. Nevertheless,
they sometimes incorporated elements of communicative patterns from other communities as
part of the selection and competition, that is survival, process (Mufwene, 2008). It can be
inferred that how languages are approved does not match the realities in society.

 The construct of languaging

In explaining the origin of translanguaging, Wei (2018) mentions the construct of languaging,
denoting the nature of language, which is not a static object that rejects any changes and
influences from other communities. He cites three fundamental reasons to support his
argument.

1. Language should be viewed as “a multi-scalar organization of processes that enables the

bodily and the situated to interact with situation-transcending cultural-historical dynamics
and practices” (Thibault, 2017, p. 78). It is not a rigid entity with specific formalism,
phonemes, words, sentences, etc.
2. The concept emphasizes human communication’s linguistic, paralinguistic, and
extralinguistic dimensions and highlights the importance of feeling, experience, history,
memory, subjectivity, and culture in the languaging process.
3. Kids do not ‘acquire’ a new language, but rather “they adapt their bodies and brains to the
languaging activity that surrounds them,” and in doing so, “they participate in cultural
words and learn that they can get things done with others under the culturally promoted
norms and values” (Thibault, 2017, p. 78).
 From the above explanations, it can be concluded that the named languages do not represent
language as a social activity as agreed by most linguists who favour the translingual perspective.

 The current sociological conditions

Globalization and technological advancements have challenged the notion of labelled languages
in applied linguistics (Otheguy et al., 2015; Wei, 2018). Nowadays, people across nations and
cultures easily come into contact, making communication fluid and complex (Creese &
Blackledge, 2015). For instance, Canagarajah (2018)- using Kleifgen’s (2013) data - reported that
Vietnamese working in the US factories shuttle between English and Vietnamese in the
workplace. Moreover, they utilize other semiotic resources, including gestures, body
movements, signs, and objects, to negotiate meaning during the conversation (Canagarajah,
2018a, 2018b). The study indicates that the rigid notion of named languages does not match the
sociological realities encountered by speakers.

The emergence of translingualism has challenged the notion of named languages in applied linguistics
and thus impacted many aspects of the field.