Multilingualism, translanguaging, diversity, equity, social justice, and activism: A tenuous nexus and misrepresentations?

Concepts employed to capture certain language phenomena are often intended to depict and reflect real-world occurrences of such phenomena. Rarely ever does the intentionality of doing so entail capturing linguistic and sociolinguistic misrepresentations. In some instances, linguistic and sociolinguistic representations are one thing; in other instances, they can result in misrepresentations. This conceptual paper uses South Africa as its main point of reference. Against this backdrop, the paper explores the nexus between multilingualism, translanguaging, diversity, equity, social justice, and language activism in the South African context. Firstly, it contends that even though translanguaging is often framed differentially from multilingualism, the latter, nevertheless, serves as its alter ego, its point of reference, and its nemesis. Secondly, it argues that both multilingualism and translanguaging, as transformative vehicles for realising human rights-centric goals such as diversity, equity, and social justice, and as efforts for challenging and dismantling the hegemony of English or Anglonormativity in South Africa, are inherently constrained and hamstrung. Thirdly, it unpacks the myth about multilingualism and translanguaging in South Africa. Fourthly and lastly, it highlights the conundrum of South Africa’s multilingualism.