Abstract This article examines translanguaging in the context of research interviews, considering translanguaging as a social practice process. Drawing on metalinguistic data from a research project which focuses on Vietnamese international students in Taiwan, we suggest that in doing translanguaging, the participants reflexively transpositioned themselves from a Vietnamese language user to a range of other roles such as: English/Chinese language expert, language manager, language acquirer, or language bargainer. At the same time, they interactively transpositioned the other person from a Vietnamese language insider to an English language insider or a Chinese language outsider in their process of meaning-making through language choice practices. This somewhat challenged the authority of the researcher who is expected to play a major role in this process. We also indicate how translanguaging may create constraints for researchers in managing interview data before providing recommendations in relation to these issues.
Nguyen et al. (Sat,) studied this question.