A TRANSLINGUAL LEAP
In my Project 2 analysis, I explore my personal narrative, comparing it to the several facets depicted by Suresh Canagarajah in his text, Transinlingual Practice. Using this text, I examine Canagarajah's view that “languages are not necessarily at war with each other, they compliment each other in communication.” (Canagarajah 6). Canagarajah believes that "transnational contact in diverse cultural…domains has increased the interaction between languages and language groups." (Canagarajah 2) and elaborates on how languages may perpetuate creativity. My personal narrative suggests that language may “interfere” when communicating with people from different backgrounds however, once initiatives are taken to over come these “detrimental” interferences then, “the influences of one language on the other can be creative, enabling and offer possibilities for voice.” (Canagarajah 6) Complicating Cangarajah's outline, my narrative describes my experiences in a multilingual environment, attempting to converse with people with whom I do not share a mutual language portraying a view against that of Canagrarajah's, depicting language as acting as a detrimental "interference". Through the medium of my Project Two analysis, I explore how language can act as a metaphorical “barrier” and/or “portal, I depicted it to be in my Project One and establish the significance of overcoming language “barriers” while raising a higher question on whether language “barriers” can always be overcome.
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Living Multilingualism by Avantika Makar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.