Translanguaging is many things. It has become a rather trendy and at times controversial term as it has gained traction in academia over the last several years. However, the way in which it has been taken up by researchers, particularly in education, is evidence that it is filling a gap in our descriptions of language practices in educational settings. This introduction reviews the history of translanguaging as an evolving term, relates it to current thinking in socioand applied linguistics and answers the question ‘what is translanguaging?’ as this author understands it. It then goes on to explain the importance of this volume’s special focus on translanguaging in higher education and finally previews each chapter in the volume, particularly emphasizing what the chapter contributes to our ever-evolving understanding of translanguaging.

The Development of Translanguaging as a Term

The history of translanguaging is firmly rooted in the field of bilingual education, though it has developed alongside several other terms that use the prefix trans-, including translanguaging (Canagarajah, 2014). The term translanguaging was first coined in Welsh as trawsieithu by bilingual education researcher Cen Williams (1994, 1996). Baker (2006: 297), in Foundations of Bilingual Education, states that when translanguaging in the classroom, ‘the input (reading or listening) tends to be in one language, and the output (speaking or writing) in the other language, and this is systematically varied’. He further explains that Williams’s research found that this type of translanguaging worked well as a teaching strategy in Welsh high schools to ‘develop both languages successfully and also result in effective content learning’ (Baker, 2006: 297). Research on translanguaging continues to be produced in the Welsh context, and scholars there have published several excellent reviews of the term and its development, including Lewis et al. (2012a, 2012b) and more recently Beres (2015). The definition of translanguaging that first came out of Bangor, Wales, essentially described a teaching strategy that worked well in developing both language and content knowledge.