Language Usage in Multilingual University Classrooms: Toward an Inclusive Translanguaging Framework for Students and Lecturers in South African Higher Education

Abstract

Multilingualism is a defining feature of South African higher education, yet university classrooms frequently remain organised around English as the principal language of teaching, learning, and assessment. This conceptual article examines how university students and lecturers use language in multilingual classrooms and proposes an inclusive framework for transforming linguistic diversity into a pedagogical resource. The article is based on an integrative review of scholarship on multilingual higher education, translanguaging, linguistic capital, epistemic access, and language-policy implementation, with particular attention to South African research and policy. The synthesis identifies five interrelated patterns. First, English offers mobility and access to global academic discourse, but simultaneously functions as a gatekeeping mechanism. Second, students use code-switching, peer explanation, translation, multilingual note-making, and digital communication to negotiate meaning. Third, lecturers employ multilingual practices unevenly, often informally and without adequate institutional support. Fourth, strategic translanguaging can strengthen conceptual understanding, participation, identity affirmation, and epistemic access. Fifth, implementation is constrained by multilingual class composition, limited terminology, assessment conventions, lecturer proficiency, workload, and monolingual institutional cultures. In response, the article develops the Inclusive Multilingual University Classroom Framework, comprising four connected dimensions: recognition of linguistic repertoires, purposeful multilingual pedagogy, equitable multilingual assessment support, and institutional enablement. The framework positions English and African languages as complementary rather than competing resources and assigns shared responsibilities to students, lecturers, departments, and university leadership. The article concludes that multilingual inclusion requires more than policy recognition or spontaneous code-switching. It requires planned pedagogical design, lecturer development, terminology resources, technology-supported access, and assessment practices that preserve disciplinary standards while widening opportunities to learn.