Cover not available

In:60 Years of Applied Linguistics: Toward more engaged research
Edited by Grégory Miras, Isabel Colón de Carvajal, Nathalie Blanc and Shona Whyte
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 22] 2026
► pp. vii–xviii

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF

Preface

Visible and invisible languages in Applied Linguistics

ORCiD logo with link | UC Berkeley
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 9 March 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.22.preface
Abstract
Using Italo Calvino’s (1972) metaphor for exploratory voyages of discovery, this preface first recounts the author’s personal engagement with the field of language learning and teaching. It then discusses the past and present efforts of researchers in Applied Linguistics to make named and unnamed languages visible to researchers and practitioners; it traces the invisible discourses that threaten the social lives of language users and their healthy communicative exchanges. Looking into the future it focuses on the major challenge presented to language educators by Generative Artificial Intelligence that prompts researchers and practitioners to question and rethink the very foundations of their field: The nature of human language, the relation of language and thought, language and power, and the purpose of language education itself.
References (34)
References
Avineri, N., & Martinez, D. C. (Eds.). (2021). Applied linguists cultivating relationships for justice: An aspirational call to action. Applied Linguistics, 42(6), 1043–1054. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barthes, R. (1978). Leçon. Leçon inaugurale de la chaire de sémiologie littéraire du Collège de France, prononcée le 7 janvier 1977. Seuil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Block, D., Gray, J., & Holborow, M. (2012). Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brumfit, C. (1997). How Applied Linguistics is the same as any other science. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 86–94. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvino, I. (1972). Le città invisibili. Einaudi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1974). Invisible cities (Translation from the Italian by William Weaver). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castaneda, H., Gamboa, P., & Kramsch, C. (Eds.). (2024). Decolonizing Applied Linguistics research in Latin America. Moving to a multilingual mindset. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cavalli, M., & Egli Cuenat, M. (2024). Translanguaging — Effet de mondialisation ou de domination? Recherches en Didactique des Langues et des Cultures. Cahiers de l’ACEDLE, 22(2). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coste, D. (2024). Historiciser? Retour sur quelques moments d’un parcours personnel. Les Cahiers de l’Acedle, 22(3). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dewaele, J. M. (2010). Emotions in multiple languages. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, E. (2015). Challenges within the ecology of multilingual interactions in Aboriginal cultural tourism in Central Australia. In U. Jessner & C. Kramsch (Eds.), The multilingual challenge. Cross-disciplinary perspectives (pp. 323–346). De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2022). Undoing competence: Coloniality, homogeneity, and the overrepresentation of whiteness in Applied Linguistics. Language Learning, 73(S2), 268–295. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gamboa, P., & Kramsch, C. (in press). Beyond binaries in teacher education. Towards a decolonial and sociohistorical reflexive pedagogy. In V. Tavares & S. Melo-Pfeifer. (Eds.), Beyond North-South binaries in language education: Contextualizing, diversifying and combining spaces.
Garcia, O., & Li, W. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glissant, E. (1981). Le discours antillais. Folio.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gramling, D. (2016). The invention of monolingualism. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinton, L. (1994). Flutes of fire. Essays on California Indian languages. Heyday Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, R. (2024). Digital literacies in the age of the algorithm. Plenary address given at the BAAL 2024 conference.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021). Language as symbolic power. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macedo, D. (Ed.). (2019). Decolonizing foreign language education. The misteaching of English and other colonial languages. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malinowski, D., & Dubreil, S. (2019). Linguistic landscape and language learning. Wiley Online. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mapes, G. (2025). The language work of speechwriters. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maranhao, T. (1992). Recollections of fieldwork conversations, or authorial difficulties in anthropological writing. In J. Hill & J. Irvine (Eds.), Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse (pp. 260–288). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
May, S. (2012). Language and minority rights. Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language (2d ed.). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Ollivier, C. (Eds.). (in press). Encyclopedia of plurilingual education/Encyclopédie de l’education plurilingue. Peter Lang.
Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C. (Eds.). (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortega, L. (2014). Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S. May (Ed.), The multilingual turn. Implications for SLA, TESOL and Bilingual Education (pp. 32–53). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pavlenko, A. (2005). Emotions and multilingualism. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the discourses of colonialism. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). From translanguaging to translingual activism. In D. Macedo (Ed.), Decolonizing foreign language education: The misteaching of English and other colonial languages (pp. 169–185). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pratt, M. L. (2024). Planetarity and knowledge crisis. Paper given at the African Studies Global Virtual Forum, 3 May.
Santos, B. de S. (2014). Epistemologies of the South. Justice against epistemicide. Paradigm.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmenk, B., Breidbach, S., & Küster, L. (Eds). (2019). Sloganization in language education discourse. Conceptual thinking in the age of academic marketization. Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue