The open access journal Social Inclusion (see link:

http://www.cogitatiopress.com/ojs/index.php/socialinclusion) will publish
a thematic issue on multilingualism. Here are the details of the
project:

Title: Multilingualism and Social Inclusion
http://www.cogitatiopress.com/ojs/index.php/socialinclusion/pages/view/nextissues#multilingualism

Editors: László Marácz (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Gumilyov
Eurasian National University, Kazakhstan) and Silvia Adamo (University of
Copenhagen, Denmark)

Submission of Full Papers: 17 to 27 October 2016

Publication of the Issue: February 2017

*Note:* Due to fact that it is an open //access journal, the
publication costs are rather high (800 Euros per accepted article, after submission and successful peer-review). The editors believe it would be worth lobbying for sponsorship from your academic institution, and think it might be
advantageous to publish open access for several reasons, the most
important reason being that you would keep the copyright of your article
along with all the advantages that may have.

Information: Linguistically diverse or multilingual societies are
increasing world-wide. This has mainly to do with processes of
globalization and Europeanization. Universal norms and standards in order
to protect linguistic and cultural identity are spreading. This has led to
the weakening of the traditional nation-state regime celebrating the ‘one
nation-one people-one language’ ideology and has made possible the
development of multilingual states. In this view, multilingualism can be
seen as challenging the national social cohesion, which before in time was
unquestioned. In many places, languages of traditional territorial
minorities have been recognized and have received an official status -
quite often next to the official language of the majority population –
leading in some cases to new forms of governance, like autonomy,
confederalization and consociational democracy. Furthermore, the
proliferation of multilingualism is boosted by all sorts 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
supports the linguistic and transnational identity of migrants bringing
with them new languages which cannot be assimilated into a host society.
Finally, English is on the rise as a global lingua franca and some
commentators consider the knowledge of global English as a prerequisite
for a just world. The idea is that the more English leads to more social
inclusion.

This thematic issue wants to address the apparent schism between
multilingualism and social cohesion. One of the question to analyse will
be, under what circumstances and conditions a group being recognizable as
a group sharing the same linguistic features is included or excluded from
society. On the one side, exclusion might cause social, political,
economic, or cultural drawbacks to all the societal actors involved.
Fragmentarization and the development of parallel societies which is the
result of social exclusion are a threat to social cohesion. On the other
side, inclusion raises also other issues: if linguistic identity is
preserved in accordance with universal norms and transnational identities
how will social inclusion in a linguistically diverse society be realized?
How are states and policy-making institutions facilitating linguistic
diversity in all the various segments of society, such as in the legal
framework defining the notion of citizenship, public administration,
education, work place, health care, media and so on?

Contributions to the thematic issue can be elaborated on from an
interdisciplinary perspective or restricted to one discipline only, like
anthropology, economics, education sciences, communication studies,
geography, linguistics, law, political and social sciences, history,
public administration, European studies; and invited to explore, but are
not restricted to, the following topics:

- Multilingualism and social inclusion, theoretical approach and
definitions;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion in the context of education,
communication, media, health care, work place, public spaces, public
administration;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: minority language speakers and
majority language speakers, territorial linguistic minorities, migrants;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: the role of different forms of
mobility, including virtual mobility;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: do speakers of global English have
a better chance in order to be included socially?
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: the rise of universal norms and
standards, linguistic human right;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: how does language policy affect
social inclusion?
- Multilingualism, and social inclusion: fault lines in society along the
language dimensions;
- Multilingualism and social cohesion vis-à-vis new citizens/migrants;
- Multilingualism and social cohesion in the workplace;
- The European legal context and the value of multilingualism in creating
social cohesion;
- Multilingualism and social inclusion: comparative studies between the
EU, and other countries with a multilingual regime, including e.g. Canada,
India, China, Russia or South-Africa.

Instructions for Authors: Authors interested in submitting a paper for
this issue are asked to consult the journal's editorial policies and to
submit their full papers through the online submission system from 17 to 27 October 2016. Authors are also advised to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further
information about the journal's open access charges and institutional
memberships can be found in the "About" webpage.