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This chapter examines biliteracy or bilingualism not through code mixing but the multifocal lens of translation. The chapter forges connections between biliteracy and cultural identity, and traces how cultural hybridity emerges from the exchange between Chinese and English. The dynamic changes in translation studies in recent decades make its choice even more compelling. Besides having outcomes for translation practice, these changes also generate conceptual rethinking that affiliates with critical and cultural theories. The chapter gives an account of recent translation studies and delineates the critical issues about language and cultural identity that it raises. These issues frame detailed discussions of three sets of Hong Kong literary texts in both Chinese and English as instantiations of biliteracy; each of these sets can posit a way of seeing, or a modality, of biliteracy. Translation studies can help disclose the insights of these modalities for both language use and cultural identity.

This chapter explores the tremendous consequences of the undereducation of students with a first language other than English. It is not likely, Patricia Gándara explains, that the United Stateswill be able to compete in a globalizing world if it does not figure out how to meet the needs of this large and increasing proportion of students. Current language education policies are squandering an asset—students who have the potential to be bilingual and biliterate—and turning it into a deficit. The source of the problem of underachievement among many children of immigrants is not the students’ language, but the way our school system treats language difference. Rather than building on these students’ assets, we define them as liabilities and treat them as though their languages and cultures need to be replaced.Gándara offers a set of recommendations to turn this around.

This chapter examines the interplay between language policy and the medium of instruction in Hong Kong. The following key questions are discussed: Which languages should be taught in Hong Kong schools? What should be the medium of instruction? Which languages are useful for economic development? What level of language competence can teachers reasonably expect learners to achieve?

This chapter explores the child’s abilities related to academic uses of language, including the abilities necessary for reading and writing. It looks at the underlying components of language proficiency that do not follow the deductive-like and universal development the way the essential components of grammatical competence do in early childhood. It also examines how learning to read, developing advanced comprehension abilities, and developing skill in text construction differ from uses of language that do not vary substantially from one person to another. The two types of language ability may differ due to the notion of “naturalness” in language learning. The chapter first provides an overview of secondary discourse ability and metalinguistic awareness before turning to the development of narrativization and levels of narrative ability, grammar development in children, and shared academic proficiencies in biliteracy.

Chapter 9 considers how reading practices are embedded in broader societal trends, especially those involving digital technology. One important development is a move from the durable to the ephemeral. This transformation is reflected in progressively choosing experiences over possessions. It also surfaces in acquiring digital over physical versions of possessions, even though users judge the physical as more valuable. Growing use of digital technologies may be leading readers using print to adopt the mindset typically associated with reading digitally. We have seen from the research that digital reading is often shallow and done quickly, frequently while multitasking. Is this the fate of print reading as well? Already some readers report print reading is boring, compared with the potential entertainment opportunities with digital. The chapter closes with suggestions for both print and digital reading in a digital world, including Maryanne Wolf’s model of biliteracy.