Drawing on data from a Bangladeshi-run mixed-goods store in Tokyo -- a site of diversity in terms of customers, the products and interactions -- we argue in this paper that in order to understand translinguistic ordinariness, or what we call "mundane metrolingualism", we have to explore both the ideas of ordinariness and of diversity in…

Critical applied linguistics remains deeply relevant today, arguably more than ever, but it needs constant renewal. This paper returns to these concerns to assess where this project has got to and where it may be headed. I review first both long-term and short-term political trends, from the rise of neoliberalism to the COVID pandemic. Next, I…

The paper explores the use of varied semiotic resources in the linguistic, social and cultural practices of young adults in the context of Bangladesh and Mongolia. Based on a translinguistic analysis (including pre-textual history, contextual relations, sub-textual meaning, intertextual echoes and post-textual interpretation) of these practices,…

This paper asks what translanguaging could start to look like if it incorporated an expanded version of language and questioned not only to the borders between languages but also the borders between semiotic modes. Developing the idea of spatial repertoires and assemblages, and looking at data from a Bangladeshi-owned corner shop, this paper…

Looking at two sets of conversations, among Greek adolescents, and between Japanese and Australian workers, this article shows how a poststructuralist understanding of the ways in which participants use and mix elements of their language repertoires implies a view of language as performative. Although the poststructuralist element of our approach…

By extending the notion of metroethnicity, this paper proposes the notion of metrolingualism, creative linguistic practices across borders of culture, history and politics. Metrolingualism gives us a way to move beyond current terms such as "multilingualism" and "multiculturalism". It is a product of modern and often urban interaction, describing…