The oppressive nature of named languages was also what struck me about the week's readings. Similarly to the phrase, codeswitching, named languages was so ingrained in our society that I often didn't think about the power dynamic behind why some languages are named while some aren't. However, there are many examples of this happening when I think deeper about it. One example is the many dialects in China while Mandarin is a language despite the fact that these dialects are often mutually unintelligible. This is emphasized more with the de jure law in China that Mandarin is the only language taught in schools. Other examples include AAVE being reduced to slang even though it does have its own language practices and sign language which wasn't acknowledged as a language until 1960.
I'm also really glad that translanguaging was able to help you reflect on your own language practices and stray away from the deficiency framework. I believe in order to better educate emergent bilinguals, educators must work through their own ingrained biases.
I'm also really glad that translanguaging was able to help you reflect on your own language practices and stray away from the deficiency framework. I believe in order to better educate emergent bilinguals, educators must work through their own ingrained biases.