Introduction : reframing language in teaching and learning : leveraging students' meaning-making repertoires

In recent years, in the context of rapidly changing globalization, global movement and evolving ‘super-diversity’ (Vertovec, 2007, 2017) within populations in many countries, an ‘unpredictable and unprecedented variation in individual linguistic repertoires’ have evolved (Taylor & Snoddon, 2013, p. 440). While linguistic diversity has long existed in many societies (e.g. Vaughan & Singer, 2018), the rapid diversification of expression through different modes of communication – technological or performative (dance, music, storytelling) – for example, has made these practices more vibrantly visible (e.g. Finegan & Rickford, 2004; Heller, 2011; Pennycook & Otsuji, 2015). For research scholarship looking at second or additional language acquisition, these shifts have helped problematize the act of classifying languages as bound entities. Challenged by the idea of language as practice, a distinct research perspective has emerged whereby multilingualism is viewed as a lived experience, focused on languaging, or ‘a way of making use of all linguistic means from diverse sources to act semiotically’ (Costley & Leung, 2020, p. 2). These practices are complex and interrelated; they do not transpire in a linear pattern nor function separately but encompass the ‘linguistic, cognitive, social and emotional components of speakers’ languaging’ or translanguaging practices (Seltzer & Garćia, 2020, p. 2). The linguistic repertoire of any individual speaker, therefore, is framed as dynamic and characterized by the language varieties people acquire, know and use within their communities. Languages can be expressed separately or intertwined for different purposes, in different places and spaces, or with different people, with these myriad communicative practices resulting in the development of rich and complex repertoires (Moore & Gajo, 2009).