Call for Papers for the Special Issue on Policies and Practices for Global Multilingualism

Guest editors
Gilvan Müller de Oliveira
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brasil
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3668-2616
Martha Lucía Pulido Correa
Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1797-0703
Umarani Pappuswamy
Central Institute of Indian Languages, Manasagangotri, Mysuru, Karnataka, India
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4105-9530

We believe the time has come to reevaluate modes of communication, interpretation, translation, understanding languages, landscapes and texts, and in general, to reevaluate the way we live in our glocal world; and we would like to invite all interested authors to do just that.

This thematic issue is organized jointly by Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura, and the UNESCO Chair on Language Policies for Multilingualism (UCLPM), taking advantage of the fact that Universidad de Antioquia became a member of the UCLPM in 2022.

The UCLPM is a research network, based at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Florianopolis- Brazil, in which 31 universities from 17 countries on 4 continents, participate, working in 11 different languages. It investigates the relationships between multilingualism and various aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals (Oliveira, 2019).

To comply with the aims of the UNESCO project on the UNESCO World Atlas of Languages (WAL, n. d.) and the UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), the UCLPM is calling attention to the need to preserve native languages and integrate them within the multilingual movement that is taking hold of speakers, readers and writers in the physical and digital world (Kelly-Holmes, 2019). For that, it has developed 9 axes or areas of interest: Multilingualism and Internationalization; Multilingualism and Intercultural Mediation; Multilingualism and Language Education; Multilingualism, Translation and Accesibility; Multilingualism and Linguistic Economy and Linguistic Rights; Multilingualism and Information and Communication Technologies; Multilingualism, borders and diasporas; Multilingualism and Literature; Multilingualism and Oral literatures.

In this special issue we will include six of those axes, always having multilingualism as a starting and ending point: Intercultural Mediation, Linguistic Rights, Translation and Accessibility, Multilingual Literature, and  Policies and Planning for Multilingualism and Multilingual Education.

Intercultural mediation facilitates communication and understanding between individuals or groups from different cultures. It involves the intervention of a mediator, who acts as a facilitator, helping to resolve conflicts, negotiate cultural differences and promote constructive dialogue. Languages and cultures go hand in hand, and therefore, multilingual actions have the power to resolve many of the conflicts existing in different cultures (Liang, 2021; Liddicoat, 2014).

Contemporary language rights assert that all people have the right to use, learn, develop, and express themselves in the language or languages of their choice. These rights can cover different aspects of people's lives and the organization of linguistic spaces in societies. It is interesting to analyze, therefore, how multilingual formats can present gains in terms of legal guarantees for the use of languages (May, 2012; Meylaerts, 2011).

Translation and accessibility are vital in a multilingual world, ensuring effective communication and equal access to information. Translation makes it possible to overcome language barriers and promote intercultural understanding. Accessibility ensures that individuals with all kinds of personal or social limitations, including language minorities, can engage with content on less unequal terms (Grutman, 2019; Matamala & Ortiz-Boix, 2016).

Hand in hand with the progression of multilingualism, we are witnessing an unprecedented number of ways of narrating and producing art. Therefore, in this volume, scientific articles that analyze the production of multilingual literatures (Grutman, 2006) where different languages coexist and interact, are welcome.

To decolonize universities, implementation of new language policies must be taken seriously into account, as indirectly, economic and racial elements are always involved. Decisions on policies and planning for multilingualism should also be analyzed as they impact the whole system on many of its aspects and are particularly interrelated with multilingual education (Antia, & van der Merwe, 2018; Van der Merwe, 2022; Berezkina, 2018; Peláez & Usma, 2017).

The way communication takes place in our societies today has moved from one language to multilingualism. It is only natural, then, that education follows the same path, and that multilingual education gains such great importance in the construction of curricula, opening academic spaces for minority languages and cultures and, sometimes, even situating them at the same level as the dominant language (Jong et al., 2019; Paulsrud et al., 2020).

Areas of interest

Proposals should subscribe to one the following areas:

• Multilingualism and Intercultural Mediation;
• Multilingualism and Linguistic Rights;
• Multilingualism, Translation, and Accessibility
• Multilingual Literary Studies
• Policies and Planning for Multilingualism.
• Multilingual Education

Type of articles

All proposals should fit within one of the categories of articles published by the journal: empirical and case studies, methodological and theoretical articles and literature reviews.

References

Antia, B. E., & van der Merwe, C. (2018). Speaking with a forked tongue about multilingualism in the language policy of a South African university. Language Policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-018-9493-3

Berezkina, M. (2018). “Language is a costly and complicating factor”: A diachronic study of language policy in the virtual public sector. Language Policy, 17(1), 55–75.

Grutman, R. (2006). Refraction and recognition. Literary multilingualism in translation. Target, 18(1), 17–47. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.18.1.03gru

Grutman, R. (2019). Multilingualism. In M. Baker & G. Saldanha (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies (3^rd Ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315678627

Jong, E. J. de, Yilmaz, T., & Marichal, N. (2019). A multilingualism-as-a-resource orientation in dual language education. Theory Into Practice, (58), 107–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1569375

Kelly-Holmes, H. (2019). Multilingualism and technology: A review of developments in digital communication from monolingualism to idiolingualism. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 39, 24–39.

Liddicoat, A. J. (2014). Pragmatics and intercultural mediation in intercultural language learning. Intercultural Pragmatics, 11(2), 259–277. https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2014-0011

Liang, M.-Y. (2021). Multilingual and multimodal mediation in online intercultural conversations: a translingual perspective, Language Awareness, 30(3), 276–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2021.1941069

Matamala, A., & Ortiz-Boix, C. (2016). Accessibility and multilingualism: an exploratory study on the machine translation of audio descriptions. Trans. Revista de Traductología, 20,11–24. https://revistas.uma.es/index.php/trans/article/download/2059/1956

May, S. (2012). Multilingualism and language rights. The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0799

Meylaerts, R. (2011). Translational justice in a multilingual world: An overview of translational regimes. Meta. Journal de traducteurs, 56(4), 743–757. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/meta/2011-v56-n4-meta0154/1011250ar.pdf

Oliveira, G.M. (2019): O multilinguismo em oito quadros. Ciência e Cultura, 71(4), 17–19. https://doi.org/10.21800/2317-66602019000400008

Oliveira, G. M, Sturza, E. (2023): O projeto “Cruzando Fronteiras” e o Seminário sobre Interculturalidade e Bilingüismo: As várias perspectivas. In Cruzando Fronteiras. Projeto Escolas Interculturais Bilíngues (pp. 72–86). OEI.

Paulsrud, B. A. Zilliacus, H., & Ekberg, L. (2020) Spaces for multilingual education: language orientations in the national curricula of Sweden and Finland, International Multilingual Research Journal, 14:4, 304-318, https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2020.1714158

Peláez, O.; & Usma, J. (2017) The role of education stakeholders in the appropriation of foreign language education policies: A case study. Profile, 19(2), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v19n2.57215

UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Access to Cyberspace (2003). Unesco [web site] https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-concerning-promotion-and-use-multilingualism-and-universal-access-cyberspace?hub=66535

United Nations Agency for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (s. f.). web site. https://idil2022-2032.org/

Van der Merwe, Channel (2022). Re-considering orientations in South African Language Policies. Bandung Journal of the Global South, 9(1–2), 279–299. https://doi.org/10.1163/21983534-09010011

World Atlas of Languages (WAL). (n.d.) World Atlas of Languages http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php

Publication Languages

Portuguese, Spanish, French, English

Specifications

Proposals should:

• Not exceed 400 words, including references.
• Include the title, author(s) names, institution, and email.
• Be written in Spanish, English, French, or Portuguese.
• State the chosen category and area of interest.
• Include a detailed description of the content of the article. If a research study (empirical or case study), make sure to include: a statement of the problem, research questions, a description of the setting (city and country, type of institution, level of instruction), the participants, the method (type of study, data collected, analysis), main findings, and implications. If an intervention is reported, please include details about the intervention (type of intervention, purpose, length, etc.)
• Include references.
• Be clear, accurate, coherent, and concise.

Submission

Please send all proposals to the journal’s email revistaikala@udea.edu.co, with the heading: Policies and Practices for Global Multilingualism

The proposals will be initially assessed, based on their innovation, applicability, clarity, correctness, originality, appropriateness, and alignment with the topic of the special issue and the categories of articles published by the journal. Authors of proposals that meet the criteria will be invited to submit full manuscripts of 8,000 and 8,500 words, including references, through the journal platform. These will then undergo a peer review process. Only manuscripts that are deemed “accepted” or “accepted with modifications” by peer reviewers and that comply with all journal publication guidelines will be published. Guidelines for authors can be consulted at: https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/ikala/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Important dates for this special issue:

Activity	Date
Posting Call for Proposals	June 23, 2023
Proposal submission	June 24 to September 25, 2023 to revistaikala@udea.edu.co
Notification of acceptance or rejection of proposal	October 16, 2023
Full paper submission through Íkala’s journal system	January 31, 2024
Peer review process	January 31 to May 15, 2024
Copyediting	May 16, 2024 to July 15, 2024
Layout and proof-reading	July 16, 2024 to August 31, 2024
Publication	Early September, 2024

For any questions regarding content or format for this special issue, please contact revistaikala@udea.edu.co