Translanguaging as a Neurological Act of Reality Construction
By: Glenn Magee
Beyond Code-Switching
You might have heard the term translanguaging recently as it is gaining attention in the field of language education. It might sound like a new term, but it has been in use since the 1980s. It was originally used to describe how bilingual students in Wales moved between English and Welsh for different classroom tasks. More recently, the term has transformed into a way of understanding how multilingual speakers use all of their language resources to communicate, think, feel and make sense of who they are. As García and Li Wei (2014) argue:
Translanguaging differs from the notion of code-switching in that it refers not simply to a shift…but to the speakers’ construction and use of original and complex interrelated discursive practices… that make up the speakers’ complete language repertoire. (p. 22)
In simpler terms, translanguaging is more than switching between two languages, or having two distinct language speakers sitting inside our brains. It is about utilizing all our language knowledge in a specific moment, through mixing, blending, and creating language that fits the situation. Multilinguals communicate in this way naturally, using a full range of expressions to maintain relationships and express who they are.
This article introduces the idea that translanguaging is more than a classroom strategy or sociolinguistic concept. Translanguaging is a neurological act of reality-construction that reflects how the brain makes predictions, updates meaning, and shows who we are in different situations. In other words, this neurological act focuses our attention on how the brain builds meaning and identity on a moment-to-moment basis. Viewed from the perspective of predictive processing, translanguaging is cognitively different from established models such as code-switching because it raises our awareness of how multilinguals revise both language and self in response to changing social and emotional environments.
Code-switching describes the way speakers alternate between two or more distinct languages or varieties of language depending on context, topic, or audience. Translanguaging, in contrast, reflects an integrated view that builds on Cook’s (1991) concept of multicompetence, which views multilinguals as having a combined language system rather than two or more separate ones.
Identity Shifts and the Predictive Brain
When a multilingual speaker interacts using all their knowledge of language they make decisions based on predictions about how to speak. The choices are not random. They are based on predictions that are influenced by who they are with, what they are talking about, and even sometimes depending on how they are feeling. While some of these decisions happen consciously through the intentional choice of words or strategies, a significant portion of the process, including the underlying predictions, social attunement, and influence of emotions and embodied cognition occur subconsciously and automatically (Cozolino, 2014; Spivey, 2020).
Translanguaging is not only about language, it is about using everything we know, our past experiences, emotions, social role, and language, to predict and respond in real time. Translanguaging can be considered as a brain-based act of constructing reality (Choi & Liu, 2021).
While multilinguals translanguage naturally in their daily lives by drawing on all of their language resources to communicate and construct meaning, translanguaging in classrooms requires more than simply allowing language mixing. In educational contexts, translanguaging becomes a pedagogical choice, and, to be effective, it needs to be guided by clear goals for supporting student agency, affirming identity, and deepening understanding of diversity in how people use languages in their daily lives. Without that grounding, there is a risk that any classroom practice involving two languages gets labeled “translanguaging,” even when it doesn’t serve these purposes. In this article, I focus on how translanguaging operates within the multilingual mind as an adaptive, predictive, and emotionally responsive act that is closer to cognitive science than classroom context.
Translanguaging becomes more than a classroom strategy when we consider it from a neurobiological perspective. Predictive processing shows the brain constantly updates our thinking based on context, emotion, and prior experience (Barrett, 2017; Clark, 2013). From this perspective, the multilingual brain is not making choices between fixed languages, it is making choices in an integrated system that is designed to make predictions about how to best communicate, connect, and understand others in any given moment.
The Emotional Language of the Self
A few months ago, I was talking with a Filipino care worker living in Japan. We were talking in English, but when the topic turned to her feelings about leaving her children in the Philippines, she said “Ang sakit sa puso” (literally, it hurts in my heart) in Tagalog and then returned to English. It struck me how automatic the shift was; it wasn’t about struggling to find the right grammar or vocabulary; it was about emotion and finding the right language to express that emotion. Tagalog gave her access to feelings that English did not allow her to express in that particular moment. From a translanguaging perspective, this was not code-switching; it was her using all of her identity to express herself in a way that was authentic to her. Her brain was not simply predicting which words to use; it was predicting which language and emotional pairing would best express what she really meant.
Identity and Context
Language is not only something we use; it is also how we create our image of ourselves. This is one of the central ideas in Julie Choi and Yvette Slaughter’s work on multilingual identity using trajectory grids (2021). They invite us to look beyond language learning as a linear or tidy process, and see it as something that is shaped by relationships, memories, emotions, and social roles. In other words, languages are things we learn and also reflections of the lives we lead.
The moment I heard about translanguaging it connected perfectly to my understanding of neuroscience and how the brain works. We learn from predictive processing theory that the brain is not solely responding to the world around it but is constantly building and revising its model of what is happening so that our predictions can improve over time.
When multilingual speakers translanguage, they are following the same process of experiencing, predicting, revising, and acting in the moment to express themselves in the best possible way. Moving beyond words, multilinguals are choosing the most appropriate version of themselves to fit the situation. Translanguaging then is not only about communication, but also about our identity. And identity is the basis of how we interpret our experiences and form new predictions.
The implications for classroom teaching are compelling. If we tie language to identity, then we cannot separate how students speak from how they see themselves. Supporting translanguaging in the classroom then is about allowing their full, complex selves to emerge as whole people and not making parts of their identity invisible through practices such as insisting on English-only, or “All-English” classroom rules (Conteh, 2018).
In practical terms, teachers can start by recognizing the legitimacy of learners’ L1 rather than banning its use entirely as this can lead to shorter and less natural interactions (Willis, 1996). Teachers can set guidelines of how and when the L1 can be used to assist learning. For example, when my Japanese CEFR B1 students are tackling open-ended critical thinking questions and there is a need to explain a difficult concept to their peers then using both languages can be helpful in supporting metalinguistic awareness while also respecting learners’ cultural and emotional identities (Anderson, 2020).
In my classroom, I use translanguaging by designing reflective tasks where students write or discuss a personal experience in any language and then share part of it in English. Allowing multilingual learners to access deeper meaning helps them engage more fully with the class, and to see their language background not as a barrier but as a crucial resource in interpreting global issues at a local level (Nunan & Choi, 2023). Translanguaging is not a shortcut to comprehension, instead its value is in meaningful engagement with content. That said, it’s important to be aware that simply increasing L1 use does not automatically lead to improved L2 skills (Treffers-Daller, 2024). This means that translanguaging should be used intentionally and not as a replacement for target language exposure.
Implications for Education and Social Understanding
Translanguaging has taken on an increasingly important role in education for those that understand its use as a tool for communication and as a way for learners to develop and express their identities. Translanguaging raises our awareness of monolingual norms and pushes us to consider creating more inclusive and equitable learning environments. This only works, though, when teachers understand the theory behind it. Without understanding, translanguaging risks misunderstanding and diminishes its value to classroom convenience.
A recent example of this is Nate Olson’s (2025) article in the JALT Journal. Olson observed team-taught CLIL classrooms in Japan where teachers often used Japanese during English lessons. While he referred to this as translanguaging, the teachers in the study did not seem familiar with translanguaging as a theory-based, student-centered approach. Instead, their language was improvised and focused on quick translation and classroom management.
Olson describes some of this as “spoon-feeding,” where teachers made things easier for learners by explaining too much in Japanese. This contributed to the classroom flow but left learners with less opportunity to think deeply, take risks, and actively work on making meaning in English themselves.
While not a direct criticism of the teachers in the study, it draws our attention to the situation that well-meant but unreflective bilingual teaching is the result of an unspoken issue. When translanguaging is not grounded in identity, emotion, or agency, it can lose its power, and we should probably refer to it as code-switching, where bilingual approaches become a shortcut rather than a strategy. It is a missed opportunity not only for learning a language, but for also learning who we are (Sato, 2022).
A multilingual is not simply two or more monolinguals in one brain and that means we should take care not to judge a multilingual speaker based on monolingual norms. For this reason, thinking of language as separate systems is an oversimplification (Grosjean, 1989; Li, 2018).
When one of my daughters entered kindergarten, we were told that she had to use only Japanese. The same conversation happened at elementary school and the implication was clear: other languages do not belong in the classroom. At home, her use of English and Japanese changed depending on where we were and who we were talking to. She was not switching between languages like an on and off switch, she was using both. The school’s policy did not match how her multilingual brain worked and treated her as two separate language learners and not one integrated child. Recent reports in the news have revealed how multilingual children in Japan without strong Japanese skills are sometimes placed in special education classes because their language use does not fit the monolingual expectations of the school system (Mainichi, 2022). The unspoken message is that a lack of Japanese fluency signals a lack of ability, when in reality, it is often the system that fails to recognize the integrated nature of multilingualism.
What if the issue is not the children but our educational systems? Systems that fail to see multilingualism as an integrated, adaptive, and predictive way of being in the world. One that fails to consider how language and identity are deeply integrated.
Translanguaging as Embodied Prediction
While we might hear translanguaging described as a strategy or classroom technique, it is much more than a buzzword as the term reflects how multilingual minds work predictively. Translanguaging theory helps us, as teachers, view our classrooms as places where identity, emotion, and experience are important parts of how learners understand and view the world around them.
The negotiation of meaning, central to Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) theory, occurs as a moment-by-moment experience for a multilingual. Instead of asking, “Which language should I use?” the brain is asking “What will best help me be understood?” or “What version of myself do I need to express right now?” In this way, language use becomes an embodied prediction that is shaped by context, feeling, and who we are becoming.
As a teacher, this requires me to think differently about what it means to support multilingual learners. I am not teaching language as a skill to master; I am helping learners realize a way to experience the world and themselves within it. The bottom line is that translanguaging is not about making things easier in the classroom, it is about making things real. And, creating space for learners to bring their full linguistic and emotional selves into the classroom, I am helping them grow and allowing their brains to do what brains do best—predict, adapt, and construct meaning from the inside out.
References
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Glenn Magee is a doctoral student in Education at Anaheim University, researching the impact of generative AI on academic writing practices in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. His current work examines how learners interact with AI tools like ChatGPT and how these interactions reveal broader issues in discourse, argumentation, and writer identity. Drawing on discourse analysis and academic literacies frameworks, his research explores the intersection of language, technology, and pedagogy in shaping learner output and agency. His approach is grounded in second language acquisition (SLA) theory and qualitative methods, with a focus on digitally mediated academic writing environments.