Translanguaging theory highlights the dynamic use of multiple languages and communication modes by multilingual people in their daily experiences. Museums are informal family learning spaces where multilingual families use languages and other semiotic resources to create learning opportunities for their children. Using a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis and multimodal interaction analysis, I examined how a multilingual family uses translanguaging practices to organize their family learning in museums and the role of pointing gestures as part of their translanguaging repertoires in multilingual family learning. The analysis of two literacy events highlights that a child and his mother translanguaged with various semiotic resources to organize museum performances, joint attention, and telling, and that pointing gestures played a role in constructing a translanguaging space as they organized the two performances. Pointing involved the family in reading signage texts and allowed the mother to translate them for the child. Viewing translation as part of the translanguaging repertoire, this study recognizes the importance of the role of pointing gestures in constructing family learning at museums, enriching children’s schooling and literacy learning in classrooms. I argue that recognizing pointing as a critical component of translanguaging allows educators to develop strategies that leverage families’ unique repertoires to support multilingual students’ language and literacy learning.

中文翻译：

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通过指向手势跨语言空间：科学博物馆的多语言家庭素养


跨语言理论强调多语言人士在日常经历中动态使用多种语言和交流模式。博物馆是非正式的家庭学习空间，多语言家庭使用语言和其他符号资源为孩子创造学习机会。我使用微观民族志方法进行话语分析和多模态互动分析，研究了多语言家庭如何使用跨语言实践来组织他们在博物馆中的家庭学习，以及指向手势作为多语言家庭学习中跨语言技能的一部分的作用。对两个识字活动的分析强调，孩子和他的母亲利用各种符号资源进行跨语言组织博物馆表演、共同关注和讲述，并且在组织这两个表演时，指向手势在构建跨语言空间中发挥了作用。指点让家人一起阅读标牌文本，并允许母亲为孩子翻译它们。这项研究将翻译视为跨语言的一部分，认识到指向手势在构建博物馆家庭学习、丰富儿童学校教育和课堂识字学习中的重要性。我认为，认识到指向是跨语言的关键组成部分，可以让教育工作者制定策略，利用家庭独特的技能来支持多语言学生的语言和读写能力学习。