المحترف

Beyond Code-switching: Delineating The Conceptual Boundaries Of Translanguaging In Emi Classes.

Auteurs : Ouanassi Abderrahmane . Ounis Salim .

Résumé

The global expansion of English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has brought renewed urgency to questions about how multilingual learners and teachers draw upon their full linguistic repertoires in academic settings. Two concepts, code-switching and translanguaging, have become central to these discussions, yet they are frequently conflated in both scholarship and practice, producing theoretical confusion and pedagogical inconsistency. This article undertakes a systematic delineation of the conceptual boundaries between code-switching, understood as a structurally governed alternation between named language systems, and translanguaging, conceived as a holistic, identity-affirming deployment of a unified multilingual repertoire. Drawing on a critical review of the applied linguistics literature spanning four decades (1980–2024), the article traces the historical and theoretical trajectories of each concept, examines how each has been operationalised in EMI contexts, and presents an original comparative framework distinguishing the two paradigms across ontological, functional, agentive, and pedagogical dimensions. The article concludes by arguing that conceptual clarity is not merely an academic exercise but a prerequisite for evidence-based language education policy and practice in increasingly multilingual universities.

Mots clés

translanguaging, code-switching, English-medium instruction, multilingualism, language repertoire, pedagogical translanguaging, higher education