Reading and Responding to Translingual Picturebooks
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Date
2024-03
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Abstract
This paper reports on a descriptive qualitative case study involving translingual picturebooks and their use in elementary schools. The data for this case study was collected as part of a doctoral dissertation. The broader context of the study exists within the potential for linguistically diverse children’s literature to influence young readers’ language ideologies, awareness, and curiosity; however, the particular focus of this paper is on the educator’s approaches to reading linguistically diverse children’s literature to elementary students and their own underlying language ideologies. This study combines two theoretical perspectives to design a framework through which to investigate the research questions. The first perspective is known as readers response or transactional theory and the second is translanguaging. One video of the educator reading aloud the picturebook Hauraki Broo by Nikki Slade Robinson was analyzed for this paper. Though the entire case study's rich data set provides numerous avenues for analysis, one salient area of discussion that arose during read-alouds of translingual picturebooks involved the pronunciation of non-English words. The data revealed numerous instances of hesitation and inhibitions when the educator came across a non-English word during their read-alouds. In particular, five different approaches to pronunciation were employed by the educator while reading one page of Hauraki Broo, which incorporated three Māori words within the English text. The focus on translingual picturebooks in this research can help educators begin to recognize characteristics of linguistic pluralism in books and the results can prepare educators to effectively incorporate more linguistic pluralism in their curriculum and make discerning choices about the translingual books they read.
Description
Education and Human Ecology: 2nd Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Advanced Research Forum)
Keywords
translanguaging, picturebook, elementary school, read aloud, language ideology