{"id":88546,"date":"2026-06-25T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/?p=88546"},"modified":"2026-06-25T09:03:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:03:52","slug":"podcast-column-rethinking-language-through-sociolinguistics-and-translanguaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/news\/88546","title":{"rendered":"[Podcast Column] Rethinking Language Through Sociolinguistics and Translanguaging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast column, we introduce the first episode of Season 2 of Waseda University&#8217;s English podcast &#8220;Rigorous Research, Real Impact&#8221;. Associate Professor Theron Muller (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/fhum\/en\/\">Faculty of Human Sciences<\/a>) served as the guest expert for \u201cTranslanguaging and Identity: Research in the Japanese Context.\u201d He expertly defines sociolinguistics and translanguaging in a way even someone without a background in linguistics can understand in the excerpt below.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Translanguaging and Identity: Research in the Japanese Context (Assoc. Prof. Theron Muller)\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/2uJuKJLFCDpZofkNijyskT?si=3SFKmqpKQDi9_de7l4tG_w&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>All eight episodes of Season 2 are currently streaming for free on <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/61VF3lETynCBuXt1AxXjXK?si=3eba847f8061431e\">Spotify,<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/e0aa1340-7af7-4227-9361-88eecc575214\/waseda-university-podcasts-rigorous-research-real-impact\">Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/waseda-university-podcasts-rigorous-research-real-impact\/id1777915569\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLeA0hDJkLYZDjs3b58eEZ1WnkvNJf9e9R\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_88567\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/news\/85788\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-88567 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ep.-1-Prof.-Muller-Thumbnail-FINAL-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1620\" height=\"927\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ep.-1-Prof.-Muller-Thumbnail-FINAL-1.png 1620w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ep.-1-Prof.-Muller-Thumbnail-FINAL-1-610x349.png 610w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ep.-1-Prof.-Muller-Thumbnail-FINAL-1-768x439.png 768w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Ep.-1-Prof.-Muller-Thumbnail-FINAL-1-1536x879.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1620px) 100vw, 1620px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">You can read the full transcript by clicking the above episode banner.<\/p><\/div>\n<h2><strong>Question: What do the terms \u201csociolinguistics\u201d and \u201ctranslanguaging\u201d mean?<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Professor Muller (1:24):<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8230;So basically, in a very short nutshell, linguistics is interested in describing the structure of language. So, you might have heard that English is subject-verb-object, whereas Japanese is subject-object-verb. So, thinking about how languages are put together or combined.<\/p>\n<p>Applied linguistics is interested in how language is actually used in the world. And then, as a part of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics is interested in the intersection of how people use language and society. So, from a very broad perspective, how society shapes language, and then also how language shapes society in turn.<\/p>\n<p>Inside that, translanguaging is actually quite specific, and it\u2019s a relatively new term in sociolinguistics. It used to be, like in language teaching research, there was something called code-switching, which means switching from one language to another.<\/p>\n<p>And then later on, there became this description of multilingualism, or people being able to speak multiple languages and switching between multiple languages. And one criticism of multilingualism is that it looks at languages as separate things.<\/p>\n<p>But neuroscience research has basically found that there aren\u2019t separate language locations in the brain. If you speak English and you speak Japanese, you\u2019re using the same parts of the brain to speak both. And so, translanguaging talks about how a translanguaging perspective views languages as interconnected and synchronously working together, as opposed to being separate things that people switch back and forth between.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Waseda Podcasts: &quot;Rigorous Research, Real Impact&quot;-- Season 2, Ep. 1 Teaser\" width=\"422\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L09hJYZfmik?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Guest:<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-88549\" src=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-610x407.jpg 610w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/assets\/uploads\/2026\/06\/0Z8_4472-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/w-rdb.waseda.jp\/html\/100004027_en.html\">Associate Professor Theron Muller<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Theron Muller is an associate professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University. He has lived in Japan, including Nagano, Toyama, and Saitama, since 2000. Prof. Muller is an applied linguist and his interests include sociolinguists and English language teaching, specifically the interaction of language, society, and identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast column, we introduce the first episode of Season 2 of Waseda University&#8217;s English podcas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,117],"tags":[355,379,178],"class_list":["post-88546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-topic","tag-highlight-en","tag-podcast-en","tag-research-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88546"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88578,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88546\/revisions\/88578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/top\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}