Open events

At a time when digital interfaces and cross-linguistic interactions permeate our daily lives, concepts like plurilingualism, translanguaging, and digital pluriliteracies are reshaping the landscape of writing development (Vallejo & Dooly, 2019). This talk delves into the impact of these concepts on our understanding of writing development and the roles educators play in documenting, valuing, and engaging with the creative, hybrid, and plurilingual practices found in digital spaces (Payant & Kim, 2022; Van Viegen & Zappa-Hollman, 2020).
The presentation will examine the evolution of theoretical frameworks in bi/pluriliteracy development (Hornberger, 2003; Lau, 2020) and their significance for the study and redefinition of discourse practices in digital writing environments (Kuteeva & Mauranen, 2018). It will highlight research that underscores the unique affordances of digital pluriliteracies, including the impact of advanced tools such as machine translation (Jolley & Maimone, 2022) and artificial intelligence (Yang & Kyun, 2022). The presentation will further showcase how digital environments not only facilitate plurilingual writers’ cross-linguistic practices but also serve as transformative spaces, offering new insights into the intricate processes associated to writing and challenging prevailing monolingual paradigms in writing education (Séror, 2022).
Implications will focus on the necessity of explicit guidance for students as they experiment with and learn to navigate digitally mediated writing and harness the dynamic interplay between their diverse semiotic repertoires to engage in textual meaning making. This guidance will also be explored as a means of addressing concerns associated with the emergence of the ‘digitally augmented learner,' whose potential overreliance on technology may impact their capacity to develop effective writing skills.
The talk will conclude by advocating for the recognition and deliberate engagement with digital writing and the pluriliteracies to foster a dynamic, inclusive, and transformative language learning and writing environment, valuing diverse pathways to literacy achievement in the digital age.