This article addresses the significant challenges in language education in Kazakhstan and explores their implications for sustainable development. By examining the current state of language education, identifying key obstacles and proposing strategic solutions, this study aims to enhance language teaching practices. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted quantitative surveys with 119 language teachers and qualitative interviews with twenty-seven stakeholders, including policymakers, curriculum developers and language education experts. The research identifies key challenges: curriculum inflexibility, resource scarcity, inadequate teacher training and low student engagement. Recommendations include curriculum reform, improved resource allocation, teacher professional development, institutional policies and collaboration with external experts. The research results reveal the need for a comprehensive approach to improve language education in Kazakhstan, contributing to the country’s sustainable development goals. The research findings provide vital insights for policymakers and stakeholders to deliberate on effective state programmes toward a more sustainable and inclusive education system. These programmes can assist educators in addressing challenges and acquiring essential content knowledge, pedagogical expertise and technological competence. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .

The current multilingual linguistic landscape of Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is undergoing profound transformations due to economic liberalisation and increased globalisation. These changes are reshaping the social fabric of both nations, turning them into dynamic multicultural hubs. English is emerging as a dominant language, increasingly overshadowing the diverse linguistic landscape that once characterised these countries. This shift towards English could potentially lead to the erosion of rich linguistic diversity, endangering local languages with thousands of years of history. Without urgent and targeted action to preserve, diversify and revitalise these endangered languages, many will face the threat of extinction, while others will be pushed to the brink of endangerment. To effectively address this pressing challenge, there is a critical need for a comprehensive research initiative aimed at revitalising endangered languages in Oman and the UAE. This paper proposes a pioneering research agenda focused on preserving and promoting balanced and equitable multilingualism in both nations. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .

Promoting multilingualism and plurilingualism is a cornerstone of the European identity and citizenship concept (Council Recommendation of 22 May 2019 on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages (Council of Europe, 2019)) and a key action within the European Universities Initiative (EUI) projects. Among the current sixty-five alliances, most incorporate the multilingualism objective into a dedicated work package, adopting various approaches (Gazzola et al. 2024; Castellotti et al. 2024; Conceiçao and Zanola 2024). These include establishing a shared language policy within the alliance, offering a catalogue of language courses available through dedicated portals and organising and recognising both formal and informal language learning activities (Castellotti et al. 2024). However, in the EUI landscape, UNITA-Universitas Montium has managed to build a multi-level educational system for a diverse audience that engages with the various activities of the alliance and that promotes intercomprehension between romance languages for academic purposes (Garbarino and Lesparre 2024; Mantegna 2023; Fiorentino et al. 2024; De Poli et al. forthcoming). The latter approach, which has been the subject of numerous research projects and publications since the early 1990s (Bonvino and Garbarino 2022; Degache 2021), is feasible due to the linguistic homogeneity of the alliance, composed of universities based in Romance-language-speaking countries. This paper focuses on the UNITA approach to linguistic diversity as a strategy for fostering the community of students, teachers and administrative staff within the alliance, as well as enhancing international mobility to meet the ambitious 50% goal set by the EUI call. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

In this paper we will show how the social setup of the Slovenian minority in Italy, including those measures put in place within the community after the Second World War to prevent assimilation, thereby establishing a minority-language environment, influenced the speakers’ choices, communicative practices and attitudes towards the Slovenian language (both standard and local varieties). In particular, we will demonstrate how the community’s leadership established a minority-language-only environment with a social and economic model focused, among other purposes, on preserving the language and protecting it from assimilation. This strategy narrowed or restricted the network of speakers that became distinctly local, tight and impermeable. Thus, we can observe how the same protective mechanisms that enabled the preservation of the minority language also reduced its dynamism, variation and change. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .

The need to study the specifics of the reflection of straightforwardness in the online and advertising discourse of Kazakhstan is due to the lack of studies related to communicative issues, in particular, the analysis of specific media genres in terms of the relationship between axiological, speech and linguistic parameters. The aim of this research is to analyse how communicative values, specifically straightforwardness, are reflected in Kazakhstani media and online discourse, particularly in the context of the country’s bilingual language policies. The following methods were used in this work: discursive, interpretative and communicative analysis as the main ones and comparative and contextual analysis as additional ones. The advertising discourse was characterised by such features as reflection of truthful events with accurate figures and dates, simplicity of syntactic constructions and vocabulary, combination of verbal and non-verbal language signs, implicitness and allegoricality, and the network discourse is characterised by the use of graphic elements, simple syntactic constructions, elliptical sentences, introductory word combinations, language economy, immediacy of the communicative process, aphoristic speech and ensuring contact between the addressee and addressees. Furthermore, in the work, it was noted that the communicative value “straightforwardness” can be considered both from the positive side and from the negative side. This study can be used to analyse the communicative specificity based on communication in different socio-cultural spaces and to study the principles of effective communication when using the category of straightforwardness. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .

Multilingual education, mainly through Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), has gained widespread popularity across Europe as a way to combine language development with subject-specific instruction. In fact, CLIL’s ability to enhance content knowledge and language skills has made it a key educational strategy. However, challenges remain crucial for understanding CLIL across contexts, particularly in relation to the integration of disciplinary literacies. This study investigates the integration of disciplinary literacies within CLIL and bilingual education programmes across Europe. A total of fifty-five in-service teachers across Europe participated in the study. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire adapted from McCarty (2012a; 2012b). Findings indicate substantial variability in the implementation of CLIL and bilingual programmes across Europe. In addition, English emerged as the dominant language of instruction, the degree of integration of disciplinary literacies varies significantly between countries and educational contexts. While many teachers are familiar with disciplinary literacies, differences were observed in their application, often due to a lack of training and standardised assessment practices. The study also presents pedagogical implications, such as the need for teacher training, clearer curricular guidelines, and more comprehensive assessment practices to ensure disciplinary literacies are fully integrated into CLIL/bilingual programmes. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

The aim of this study was to determine the key features of periphrasis use (semantics, structure, grammatical combinability, stylistic functions) on the example of Kazakh, British and Spanish mass media. The following methods were used in the study: comparative, lexical-semantic, stylistic, analytical-synthetic, contextual, graphic. It was found out that the main semantic groups of periphrasis are the following: names of cultural and political figures, cultural and historical events, geographical objects, communities, terminological units and metaphorical constructions. The euphemistic periphrasis used in Kazakhstani mass media were divided into semantic groups: names of diseases, terminological concepts, names of social groups and designation of participants of military actions and protests. In the British press, euphemistic periphrasis is included in the following semantic groups: names of negative social phenomena, names of specific individuals and social groups, names of military actions and designation of diseases. Euphemistic periphrasis in the Spanish press denote negative socio-political phenomena, military actions and terminological units. In Kazakhstani newspapers, euphemistic periphrasis was used to soften information and demonstrate tolerance, in British newspapers to increase the emotional-expressive impact on the reader and soften information, and in Spanish newspapers to increase the level of imagery and soften information. This study can be used to create new technical tools for semantic analysis of texts, for comparative study of strategies for introducing periphrasis into media contexts and for the study of euphemisms in international communication. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/ .

This article was published open access under a CC BY-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ .