Acosta, Abraham. “The Wager of Critical Multilingualism Studies.” Critical Multilingualism Studies 2:1 (2014): pp. 20-37. ISSN 2325-2871. Abraham Acosta University of Arizona THE WAGER OF CRITICAL MULTILINGUALISM STUDIES Abstract: This essay reflects on the potential meanings of ‘critical multilingualism studies’ in an era of unparalleled cultural and economic porosity, exploring how such a scholarly and theoretical field might reimagine inter- and multilingual inquiry in the Humanities, Comparative Literature, Latin American Studies, critical theory, and second language acquisition. Applying insights from Jacques Rancière, Jean Baudrilliard, Carlos Montemayor, Horacio Castellanos Moya, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Acosta interrogates the ideological distinction between ‘monolingual signification’ and ‘translational signification,’ between universalist abstractions and the specific language(s) from which they issue. Taking the Zapatista uprisings of 1994 as a case study, Acosta then turns to how the ascription 'monolingual' has been mobilized in Mexican public discourse. Keywords: Political theory  use-value  Jacques Rancière  Zapatista movement  monolingualism n the 11th of December 2013, following the globally televised memorial honoring Nelson Mandela’s passing in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was revealed through multiple agencies that the sign language interpreter provided for the ceremony, seen standing stage-left of the podium and translating for almost all of the honored speakers during the event, was in effect not translating anything at all. Groups such as the Deaf Federation of South Africa, among others, accused the interpreter of simply not using any recognized sign system or variation thereof, and rather to have been making up hand gestures with no relationship to either the speeches he was ‘translating’ or the standardized O