Date: 05/03/2023 Shift: 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM Q. No: 5

Differences do not always have to be roadblocks. In the age of multilingualism, differences often help find long-term solutions to pertinent problems. The idea that there should be only one tongue for all the members of the workforce needs further reconsideration. It provides a functional advantage when all the members speak only one language. However, this adherence to one language often entails that people from different linguistic and ethnic backgrounds need to learn or must have learnt only one language. In fact, it resorts to exclusion in the name of uniform linguistic practices. People have different mother tongues, and it is only natural. Rather than forcing young adults into learning only one language without much critical thinking only exacerbates the organization’s language-related issues. One needs to re-evaluate differences as resources. The concept of translingualism appears to be extremely useful in this regard. Translingualism and multilingualism should not be conflated into one. While the latter is a linguistic identity, the former is a dynamic model executed in linguistic practices. Translingualism may successfully result in linguistic behaviour that counts on a speaker’s multilingual resources. That means if the person wants to better their English speaking skills, their learning can draw from strategies of their non-English mother tongue. Tranlingualism can help eradicate the stigma associated with the performance aspects of language users especially when their English speaking or writing skills are not up to the mark if held up to the gold standards of highly efficient language users. Translingualism provides a unique perspective into re-inventing the wheel. It can better the language learning experiences and shed light on new strategies for users when they attempt to learn the workplace language. Translingualism is not an instant solution to language barriers in the workplace. However, it surely promises a good starting point to address the language issues that feed exclusionary biases, burden non-native English speakers, and typecast a multilingual non-native speaker of English as an aberration to the projected uniformity in the workplace. Those who aim to adopt the translingualism approach should keep in mind the possibility of errors in the target language use. The goal here is to use translingualism as a model for learning and not go against the grain of using English as a workplace language.

I. Apply the strategies from the mother tongue to the learning and use of the English language

II. Fix a target language such as English for functional reasons

III. Acknowledge linguistic diversity

IV. Draw from existing linguistic and cognitive strategies unique to the non-English mother tongue