Translingual practices entangled with semiotized space and time

This thematic volume of sociolinguistic research studies adds to the theoretical discussions on and the practical frameworks of ‘translinguistic movement’ in current critical sociolinguistics. While acknowledging the ethos of post-structuralism in critical sociolinguistics, the papers in this Special Issue indicate the necessity of transgressing the boundaries set by the ‘post’ movement. These papers accept the central role of language in sociolinguistics, but also suggest going beyond the logocentrism of post-structuralism to see how individuals use signs and other semiotic resources in the disordered complexities of spaces. Pennycook (2017a) also critiqued the overall anthropocentricism observed in the ontology of knowledge and showed concerns about how animals and non-human elements of the natural ecology are deliberately marginalized in the construction of knowledge. Hence, the Special Issue, going against the fetishization of language, suggests taking into account of multisensory, multi modal, and multilingual resources in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics.