Creating the illusion of speaking Romanian well”

Hungarian speakers’ teaching and learning the majority language in Romania

Bibliographic Data

ID9744118
AuthorsKrisztina Rácz (0000-0001-7392-9628, University of Oslo, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume41
Issue1
Pages29-56
Publication date2022-01-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMultilingua (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0167-8507 • E-ISSN: 1613-3684
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/multi-2020-0129
OpenAlexW3137629006
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited50

The case study of the article is translanguaging as an educational strategy in preparation for the graduation exam in Romanian language and literature in a Hungarian school in Miercurea Ciuc/Csíkszereda, Romania. Romanian language competence scores are at the bottom of national rankings in this Hungarian-majority town in Szeklerland. Students who speak a minority language have their knowledge of the majority language evaluated in the graduation exam in Romanian language and literature based on the same criteria as first-language speakers’, which has strong implications for their participation in Romanian society. The main research question of this ethnographically informed article is how translanguaging happens in a classroom where students’ first language is being used with the aim of facilitating performance in their second language. The article argues that in the classrooms where the research was conducted, translanguaging is a strategy that negotiates between students’ educational needs in the local environment and the expectation espoused by the state to perform as if they were monolingual Romanian speakers. Similarly, students use translanguaging to strategize between the curricular expectations and their language performance. Yet, I argue that in this case study the emancipatory potential of translanguaging is limited due to ethnolinguistic hierarchies that remain unchallenged

Competence (human resources · First language · Foreign language · Graduation (instrument · Linguistic competence · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Romanian · Sociology · Translanguaging · Gender Studies in Language · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access