“It was kind of a given that we were all multilingual”: Transnational youth identity work in digital translanguaging

Drawing from the framework of translanguaging, this case study counters the notion of separatism in one's multilingual competency as developing separate monolingual capacities in different languages. Building from definitions and integration of theories from translanguaging and digital literacies in the context of transnational connectivity, and using the methodological tools of discourse analysis, this ethnographic case study examined how the case youth drew upon her entire semiotic repertoire in digital spaces to materialize relationships and identities across her local and transnational social fields. Specifically, analyses of the three translanguaging examples demonstrate how the youth progressively expanded her translanguaging scope across contexts of classroom, transnational family, and multilingual youth community, endorsing how the translanguaging approach affords a more comprehensive look into the transnational youth's literacy development and identity work.