TRANSLANGUAING IN DIGITAL SPACES: COGNITIVE AND LINGUISTIC DIMENSIONS OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The fast growth of digital technologies has transformed the practices of language learning in multilingual societies, making more evident the centrality of translanguaging in digitally mediated communication. This qualitative study examines translanguaging within digital spaces and how it has cognitive and linguistic implications for Language Acquisition in Pakistan, taking its theoretical framework from the Sociocultural Theory (SCT) for this study. Situated in the urban and semi-younger schooling higher-education contexts, the research investigates the navigation of Urdu, English, and regional tongues in digital surroundings by means of social Immediate, knowledge management systems, and language studying applications. Data had been produced via semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and reflective narratives and have been analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings reveal that digital platforms are powerful mediational tools that help extend the zones of proximal development of learners by facilitating, collocating, and allocating access to multimodal resources. Translanguaging is revealed to be a strategic cognitive and linguistic practice that reduces cognitive load, promotes understanding, supports vocabulary development, and leads to internalisation of language skills. Both multilingual, multimodal digital resources further promote cognitive engagement; digital translanguaging practices promote learner autonomy and metacognitive awareness. However, structural and pedagogical constraints, such as poor digital access, monolingual curricular norms, and inadequate teacher training, constrain the integration of translanguaging on a systematic basis within formal education. Through providing context-specific evidence from Pakistan, this study adds to the international literature by showing that translanguaging in digital spaces is not peripheral but central in language acquisition in multilingual contexts. The results here highlight the need for SCT-informed, digitally inclusive pedagogical models that value translanguaging as an important cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural asset to contemporary language educational practices.