Abstract
Multilingual or linguistically heterogeneous societies are increasing around the globe. Socio-political processes, like Europeanization and globalization, are responsible for this expansion. Universal norms and standards for language use and identity are spreading, mediated by international organizations and charters. In this view, multilingualism can be seen as a challenge to national social cohesion, though it remained undisputed before the development of global multi level governance. In many places, languages of traditional territorial minorities have been recognized and given official status, leading in some cases to new forms of local, regional, and national governance. Furthermore, the proliferation of multilingualism is boosted by a variety of forms of mobility, where mobility is understood as physical migration or new forms of virtual mobility connected to digital networks. Mobility in this sense underpins the linguistic and transnational identity of the migrants who bring new languages with them. One of the questions in need of analysis is the circumstances and conditions that lead to the inclusion/exclusion from society of specific linguistic groups with shared linguistic features. This thematic issue wants to address the apparent schism between multilingualism and social inclusion as well as the language policy and planning pursued by supranational institutions, states, and societal organizations in their efforts tackle it. In this issue, the focus of study of linguistically diverse societies will be on the closely interrelated dependencies which impact language policy and planning.
Highlights
In the context of globalization and its ensuing superdiversity, creating fair and effective linguistic governance is a very complex challenge and there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions
Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 1–4 gies of these strategies. One of these initiatives is the toolkit for multilingual and transnational communication which describes four communicative strategies that can be used in situations where speakers of different mother tongues converse together
The European language policy recommendations (Commission of the European Communities, 2003), for instance, the “1+2” Barcelona formula for language learning, should be accommodated by the Toolkit, which is a more complex containment strategy to guarantee that global English and other multilingual and transnational communication strategies do not limit but rather support mobility and inclusion
Summary
In the context of globalization and its ensuing superdiversity, creating fair and effective linguistic governance is a very complex challenge and there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions. A variety of strategies presented above are critically evaluated by the authors of this issue Most of these policies propose multilingual solutions relying on actors being committed to the protection and promotion of cultural diversity based on the principles of fairness and dignity—objectives which are, often neglected by the utility-based hierarchization of languages as a result of the pressure from neoliberal governmentality in education and in public management. Another set of solutions offered by the authors in this issue to address the schism between multilingualism and social inclusion revolve around the use of a lingua franca in communication. These solutions are presented in more detail through the lenses of the authors and their case studies
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