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The focus of this special issue is on the opportunities presented and challenges posed by the thematisation of multilingualism in the media. A number of case studies from a variety of linguistic, media, political, social, economic and educational contexts are presented, with the objective of addressing the challenges and opportunities that arise when multilingualism becomes thematised. In this introduction, we would like to address two main theoretical and methodological issues: (1) what we mean bymultilingualism; and, (2) what we mean bythematising.

peer-reviewed ; This volume examines the complexities of the processes and practices of multilingualism in a wide range of economic, cultural, political and physical peripheral sites and spaces (tourism, education, indigenous and minority language rights and politics, gender relations, marketing, airports) in different geographic locations (Austria, Canada, Corsica, Catalonia, Finland, Ireland, Patagonia, Spain, Slovenia, U.S.A., Wales). Using approaches that draw on sociolinguistics, discourse studies and ethnography, different peripheral indigenous and minority language sites varying from Arctic territories to a busy airport in Wales are examined. The volume brings together these different contexts and approaches in order to explore what kind of possible commonalities and differences might arise from processes of peripheralizing and centralising in multilingual indigenous and minority language sites. The perspective opens up new ways of thinking and theorising about multilingualism and about cores and peripheries, and necessarily involves a challenge to existing notions of straightforward power relations (e.g. majority-minority; centre-periphery etc.). It questions assumptions about peripheries as less fortunate counterparts to prosperous centres, and suggests instead that peripheries are diverse, multilingual spaces, constructed by but, crucially, constitutive to cores. ; ACCEPTED ; Peer reviewed

This symposium was organised by the Inter-African Committee on Linguistics—a committee of C.C.T.A. whose chairman is Professor M. Guthrie. It was planned to coincide with the second meeting of the Committee, which accepted responsibility for implementing the recommendations of the symposium after approval by member governments of C.C.T.A.

The concept of affordances originating in Gibson's work (Gibson, 1977) is gaining ground in multilingualism studies (cf. Aronin and Singleton, 2010; Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Dewaele, 2010). Nevertheless, studies investigating affordances in respect of teaching, learning or using languages are still somewhat rare and tend to treat isolated aspects of multilingualism. This is despite the fact that the theory of affordances can actually provide a valuable, supplementary, up-to-date framework within which a clearer, sharper description and explication of the intriguing range of attributes of multilingual communities, educational institutions and individuals, as well as teaching practices, become feasible. It is important that not only researchers and practitioners (teachers, educators, parents, community and political actors) but also language users and learners themselves should be aware of how to identify or, if necessary, design new affordances for language acquisition and learning. The aim of this article is to adapt the concept of affordances to multilingualism studies and additional language teaching, and in so doing advance theoretical understanding in this context. To this end the article contains a brief summary of the findings so far available. The article also goes further into defining the ways of how affordances work in relation to multilingualism and second language teaching and puts forward an integrated model of affordances.

This study focuses on the evolution of multilingualism from a linguistics of communitiy to a linguistics of contact till a linguistics of global societies.The growing international interest in multilingualism, which has been marked by the changing political and economic landscape of different nations in the world, is significantly represented in the media and in public discourse. Globalization, transnational population flows and the spread of new technological platforms have given rise to remarkable linguistic, cultural and demographic transformations, still occurring in the globe. The burgeoning research in bilingualism and multilingualism, which covers a broad range of specific domains from linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics to neurolinguistics and clinical linguistics, from education and societal behaviourism to migration studies and computer- mediated communication, has seen the emergence of new strands of investigation which "have incorporated critical and post-structuralist perspectives from social theory and embraced new epistemologies and research methods" (Martin-Jones, Blackledge and Creese, 2012: 1). Besides, a clear shift of focus to empirical work, which has become more interpretative, ethnographic and multimodal in nature, has reinforced, on the one hand, the understanding of the particularities of multilingual settings and practices and, on the other, has begun to provide insights into the nature of the cultural and societal changes taking place in recent times. Multilingual competences and practices–involving bilingual and multilingual speakers who, while crossing existing social and linguistic boundaries, adapt themselves to unfamiliar and overlapping linguistic spaces–are highly relevant to many areas of linguistic and sociolinguistic investigation. New research on multilingualism and multilingual behaviour is shedding light on the dynamics of multilingual realities, such as multiple language acquisition and learning (L3, L4, Lx), psycho- and neurolinguistic components deriving from conditions of forced multilingual spaces subsequent to forced exiles, patterns of translanguaging, early bilingualism, and heritage language development.

This is a thematic issue on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. Due to globalization, Europeanization, supranational and transnational regulations linguistic diversity and multilingualism are on the rise. Migration and old and new forms of mobility play an important role in these processes. As a consequence, English as the only global language is spreading around the world, including Europe and the European Union. Social and linguistic inclusion was accounted for in the pre-globalization age by the nation-state ideology implementing the 'one nation-one people-one language' doctrine into practice. This lead to forced linguistic assimilation and the elimination of cultural and linguistic heritage. Now, in the present age of globalization, linguistic diversity at the national state level has been recognized and multilingual states have been developing where all types of languages can be used in governance and daily life protected by a legal framework. This does not mean that there is full equality of languages. This carries over to the fair and just social inclusion of the speakers of these weaker, dominated languages as well. There is always a power question related to multilingualism. The ten case studies in this thematic issue elaborate on the relation between multilingualism and social inclusion. The articles in this issue refer to this topic in connection with different spaces, including the city, the island, and the globe; in connection with different groups, like Roma in the former Soviet-Union and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia; in connection with migration and mobility of Nordic pensioners to the south of Europe, and language education in Scotland; and finally in connection with bilingual education in Austria and Estonia as examples of successful practices including multilingualism under one and the same school roof.

""Cover""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgements""; ""Contributors""; ""1. Multilingualism and the Periphery""; ""2. Repositioning the Multilingual Periphery: Class, Language, and Transnational Markets in Francophone Canada""; ""3. What Makes Art Acadian?""; ""4. Tourism and Gender in Linguistic Minority Communities""; ""5. Heteroglossic Authenticity in Sámi Heritage Tourism""; ""6. Linguistic Creativity in Corsican Tourist Context""; ""7. �Translation in Progress�: Centralizing and Peripheralizing Tensions in the Practices of Commercial Actors in Minority Language Sites""