Student Translanguaging Practices in the EMI Classroom: A Study of Italian Higher Education

This chapter reports on a study of student translanguaging practices in English-medium instruction (EMI) at an Italian university. Translanguaging is intended here as the strategic use that multilingual speakers make of their entire linguistic repertoire so as to facilitate the effective learning of content. Meanwhile, EMI is defined as the adoption of English to teach academic content in countries where the first language for communication is not English. The data analysed for this chapter have been collected as part of a wider research project, which aims to look at students’ experiences of EMI and their language use during EMI lessons at the University of Padova. For this chapter, the authors analysed a selection of EMI classes where students were active participants in group work or oral presentations, in which the spontaneous use of translanguaging practices could potentially be observed. After discussing the communicative functions of student translanguaging practices in the observed lessons, the authors conclude by reflecting on the extent to which these practices might be determined by the local Italian Higher Education (HE) context and whether there should be greater attempts to legitimise and foster translanguaging in EMI.