Stockholm university
Denna sida på svenska

Jaana Kolu

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Translanguaging as a Multilingual Practice

    2018. Jaana Kolu. Jugendsprachen/Youth Languages, 575-598

    Chapter

    The main focus of this study is an exploration of informal conversations among bilingual adolescents at three junior high schools in Haparanda, a Swedish town on the country’s northeastern border with Finland. Besides this, a brief comparison is made with interaction among bilingual adolescents at a Swedish-speaking junior high school in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The aim of the study is to increase our knowledge of bilingual adolescents’ interaction practices and particularly adolescents’ use of their language repertoires, i. e. translanguaging, in the negotiation of meaning. The theoretical framework is found in the field of translanguaging, which aims to describe bilingual language use and interactional practices rather than focusing on the languages themselves. In translanguaging research on interaction has the multilingual speaker as the norm, not the monolingual individual. The analysis of the collected conversation data (2014-2015) is qualitative. The analysis of the bilingual adolescents’ conversations in Haparanda reveals patterns in their translanguaging practices in negotiating meaning. The interlocutors fluidly and flexibly make use of their language resources in their interaction, which means that not only Standard Swedish and Finnish are used in the negotiation processes, but also Meänkieli (Tornedalen Finnish), local dialects, youth slang, and English. They translanguage in order to make sense beyond the resources of any one particular single language. Examined from the viewpoint of translanguaging, similar patterns could be found in Haparanda and Helsinki.

    Read more about Translanguaging as a Multilingual Practice

Show all publications by Jaana Kolu at Stockholm University

Edit the profile