Special Issue: Deaf and hearing signers’ multimodal and translingual practices

This special issue focuses on the study of the embodied visual-tactile modality (such as the use of sign languages and gestures) in translingual practices. “Translingual” refers to translanguaging, a term that has been coined to frame “the complex language practices of plurilingual individuals and communities” (Garcia and Wei 2014: 20). These language practices are not only plurilingual but also multimodal (Garcia and Wei 2014). However, multimodal approaches in translanguaging research have largely been interpreted and designed as focus- ing on written language and images in addition to spoken languages. Extending and transforming the study of multimodality in translanguaging, the articles in this special issue take deaf and hearing signers’ linguistic practices as their starting point, analysing the unique ways in which sign, gesture, writing, speak- ing and mouthing are used together to co-produce meaning.