From Yi Language to Mandarin: translanguaging practices and identity construction between actual and ought-to L1 selves

In multilingual classrooms where heritage and dominant languages coexist unequally, translanguaging is often encouraged pedagogically, yet its identity-shaping potential remains underexplored. This case study, situated in a Mandarin-medium secondary classroom in China, investigates how translanguaging involving Yi Language, a heritage language and actual first language (L1) for students, mediates their identity construction in relation to Mandarin, the state-sanctioned ought-to L1. Drawing on classroom observations and student interviews, we identified teacher- and student-initiated translanguaging practices that fulfilled pedagogical, relational, epistemic, and identity-affirming functions. Despite shared instruction, students demonstrated three distinct identity profiles: resistant, emergent, and reflexive. These profiles reflected differing perceptions of heritage language legitimacy and varied responses to the linguistic hierarchy embedded in the classroom. The findings suggest that translanguaging should be understood not merely as a pragmatic teaching strategy but as an ideological and epistemic act that shapes learners’ identity trajectories within broader sociolinguistic structures.