“Flow Through Windows and Mirrors”: The Emergence of Motivation in Translanguaging and Transepistemic Knowledge Participation in English‐Medium Contexts

ABSTRACT Recent research has recognized that English‐medium instruction (EMI) classrooms are multilingual and multicultural spaces. Within these dynamic environments, translanguaging enables learners to mobilize diverse semiotic and sociocultural resources to construct meaning. This complexity raises a key question: what motivates students to engage in such fluid and layered meaning‐making? Drawing on epistemic motivation as the desire for meaningful understanding and informed by the “Chuang” (窗) perspective, we conceptualize epistemic motivation as a dual movement of outward exploration and inward reflexive positioning. Based on a 12‐month classroom ethnography in an EMI course at a Chinese university, a phenomenologically informed thematic analysis reveals three key findings: epistemic motivation is context‐sensitive, dual‐oriented through “Chuang” (窗) moments of “window and mirror,” and ecologically sustained through translanguaging as both a motivational trigger and an enabling condition. Building on these findings, the study advances the concept of transepistemic motivation, highlighting the transformative potential of EMI classrooms as spaces that cultivate not only language learning and disciplinary knowledge, but also expansive thinking across individual idiolects and shared epistemic journeys.