New publication in The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

Multilingual university students increasingly engage with digital technologies (e.g. AI-powered translation tool, note-taking app) as part of their academic literacy practices (ALPs). While some view these practices as problematic and potentially encouraging academic misconduct, others recognize their crucial role in students’ language and literacy development, particularly as we move into a rapidly transforming digital future. This study advocates for a process-oriented view, shifting away from an exclusive focus on digital tools towards an understanding of how these tools function with multiple meaning-making resources within multilingual students’ ALPs. Set within a graduate coursework subject at an Australian university, this study investigates one multilingual university student’s (Qian’s) step-by-step processes of carrying out ALPs in writing an argumentative text. Applying narrative thematic analysis of interview data, screen recordings, and written assignments, our findings reveal that digital technologies serve as mediators in complex meaning-making processes that draw on multilingual students’ full linguistic and cultural repertoires. Through Cowley’s [2012. “Distributed language.” In Distributed Language, edited by S. Cowley, 1–14. John Benjamins Pub] ‘distributed language view’, this study emphasizes digital tools as just one part of a broader meaning-making meshwork which includes ecological (classroom environment), dialogical (peer interactions), and non-local (cultural identity, prior knowledge) elements. We conclude by proposing guiding questions to help educators reflect on pedagogical implications.