Originated from the Welsh revitalization education (Williams, 1994) and inspired by such established concepts of languaging (Merril Swain) and multicompetence (Vivian Cook), the concept of translanguaging has emerged as a practical and powerful theory of language education and communication (Li, 2018) to captivate the complex, dynamic, embodied, and adaptive interactions between human cognition and the superdiverse social-cultural milieu. The past two decades have witnessed exponential growth and ubiquitous permeation of the translanguaging lens being applied in a broad range of domains and disciplines spanning across humanities and social sciences and beyond. To further demystify and elucidate the potential contributions of the translanguaging theory to human cognition and language sciences, this paper aims to make a strong case and argue for a 'Translanguaging Turn' in translation and interpreting studies (cf. Baynham & Lee, 2019). Overall, we argue that translation and interpreting activities are by default translanguaging practices where translanguaging spaces are permeated and ubiquitous.

From the translanguaging lens, translation and interpreting activities can be viewed as social-cognitive activities of meaning-making, in which the interpreter's multicompetence is interacting with the external environment and the broader social-cultural context. Externally, at the Macro societal level, all the engaging agents and stakeholders (e.g., the employer, publisher, translator/interpreter, audience, reader, etc.) in their dynamic interactions are spawning multilingual, multimodal and multisemiotic translanguaging spaces during interpreting. Furthermore, during interpreting, many multimodal and multisemiotic resources (terminology, glossary, dictionary, computer-aided tools, machine-translation, etc.) are available at the disposal of the translator/interpreter. Translanguaging spaces arising at this level can be categorized as the meso level that features multimodality. Internally, during the mental and cognitive processing of translation or interpreting tasks and activities (e.g., listening, comprehension, memory, note-taking, and production), the moment-by-moment interactions and decision-making processes are giving rise to translanguaging spaces at the micro level. Taken together, all three levels of analysis culminate in a unified theory of interpreting aptitude in line with the key tenets of the translanguaging theory (Han, Wen & Li, in press). We shall conclude the paper with a translanguaging research agenda for future investigations into translation and interpreting practice.

Keywords: translation/interpreting, interpreting aptitude, translanguaging, translanguaging space, moment analysis, the 3M aptitude model

Bio

Zhisheng (Edward) Wen (Ph.D., Chinese University of Hong Kong) is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Translation at Macao Polytechnic Institute, Macau. Dr. Wen has over 20 years of teaching experience in applied linguistics and translation studies at major universities across the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao). His broad teaching and research interests lie in second language education, task-based language teaching and learning, bilingual processing and translation/interpreting studies, with internationally recognized expertise in language aptitude and working memory research. Prof. Wen has published extensively in academic journals and edited volumes. His recent books include Working memory in second language acquisition and processing (Multilingual Matters, 2015), Working memory and second language learning (Multilingual Matters, 2016), Language aptitude (Routledge, 2019), and Researching L2 task performance and pedagogy (Benjamins, 2019). Forthcoming volumes include “Cambridge handbook of working memory and language” (Cambridge University Press, 2022); "Language aptitude theory and practice" (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and “Cognitive individual differences in second language acquisition” (de Gruyter, 2022).