Languages
and literacies in the 21st Century
23 January 2017 - Deborah Minors
Professor Leketi Makalela chairs a
research programme on complex multilingual encounters, a growing field
attracting increasing numbers of PhD candidates.
Makalela is the Head of the Division of
Languages, Literacies and Literatures in the Wits School of Education. His
research explores the interface between languages and literacies in the 21st
Century. He is intrigued by the prospect of alternating languages of input and
output to enhance identity construction and epistemic access for multilingual
students.
His research challenges the validity of
boundaries between languages and literacies and it ‘disrupts’ monolingual bias
in classroom interactions and language policies. His research highlights the
fact that monolingual bias is the root cause of high failure rates among
multilingual learners and that it reproduces social inequalities.
In light of these theoretical
limitations, he has developed a multilingual literacies framework that is based
on the African value system of interdependence – ubuntu – to define complex
multilingual encounters.
Using ubuntu ‘translanguaging’ to explain
cultural competence that is embedded in the logic of incompletion (i.e., one
language is incomplete without the other) and interdependence,
Makalela argues that all global multilingual encounters are characterised
by the constant disruption of language and literacy boundaries and the
simultaneous recreation of new discursive ones.
This research shifts epistemological
lenses from the North to the South and proposes practical methodologies that
are anchored in the cultural competence of multilingual speakers for increased
access to knowledge, ways of knowing, and identity formation/affirmation.
“I believe this is the most effective way
to bring about transformed school practices in South Africa and other
comparable contexts worldwide,” he says.
CALL FOR PAPERS: The Hub for Multilingual Education and
Literacies in the Wits School of Education invites papers for the 4th International Conference on Language and Literacy
Education. Email your 250-word abstract to matlakala.moagi@wits.ac.za
by 31 March 2017.
Read more about research at Wits in Wits Research Matters
- See more at:
http://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2017/2017-01/languages-and-literacies-in-the-21st-century-.html#sthash.nxDMYZjy.yqnvKq1o.dpuf
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