1 Citation: Zhu Hua & Li Wei (2019). Translanguaging and diasporic imagination. In R. Cohen & C. Fischer (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Diaspora Studies (pp.106-112). Routledge. Translanguaging and diasporic imagination Zhu Hua and Li Wei Language matters for people on the move. It is part of the identity of diaspora and in some cases, it can be the only connection one has with the ancestral land from which the community has dispersed. When diasporas move across space and change over time, they have to make decisions about the extent to which they can maintain the heritage language or adopt the language of the new place of residence. Language then becomes a symbolic and mobile resource that diasporic communities utilise for strategic purposes. It is, therefore, not surprising that in the last two decades, migration and diaspora have become important topics for applied linguists who are concerned with real-world issues in which language plays a central role (Brumfit 1995: 27). A number of questions linking language, migration and diaspora have been addressed in some depth by applied linguists. These include: as reviewed in Li Wei and Zhu Hua (2013), how and why do migrants maintain ‘old’ languages, i.e. languages of their heritage? How and why do they learn ‘new’ languages, i.e. languages of their new place of residence? How do migrants negotiate languages, social relationships, identities, and ideologies in the family, the community and the workplace? And how do they choose from their multilingual repertoire to communicate in institutional settings such as schools, health and medical services, legal, social and public service encounters? The recent publication of the Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language edited by Canagarajah (2017) provides an overview of the conceptual and methodological frameworks in the field of multilingualism, migration and diaspora, as well as discussions of the implications for policy and practice. In this chapter, we focus on new ways of understanding of language choices from the perspective of diasporic imagination. We explore how diasporic imagination impacts on the language choices diasporic communities make and, at the same time, how language choices and practices infuse and actualise diasporic imagination. In particular, we discuss examples of translanguaging practices through which migrants negotiate their subjectivity and sense of belonging. Diasporic imagination and linguistic choice