Multilingualism: A Resource for Meaning-Making and Creating Ontological Access

Abstract

This article explores first-year Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) students’ multilingual practices in a university course where students have access to professionally translated technical terminology of the subject field. The study examines whether multilingual technical terminology—embedded in a dialogic teaching model—can contribute to students’ epistemological and ontological access to the disciplinary content, and whether it can contribute to knowledge construction in a discipline by incorporating students’ oral contributions of their lived experiences into the curriculum content. In order to answer the research questions, qualitative data were collected by transcribing, analysing and interpreting students’ multilingual oral contributions on key political science topics. The findings of the study confirm that students’ vernacular literacies can play an important role in providing epistemological and ontological access for students at university, and can contribute to authentic transformation and decolonisation of higher education.