Multilingual Perspectives from Europe and Beyond on Language Policy and Practice: Picking up the threads.

Today, the idea of languages as divisory structures impeding contact between cultures or within cultures is, or indeed should be, a thing of the past. Language education in an instructional context no longer concerns the narrow field of lexical, grammatical, syntactic elements pertaining to one single dominant language, but embraces pluralistic linguistic and cultural aspects stretching across all languages and disciplinary fields. Indeed, the rise of break-away independence movements on the one hand, the upsurge of nationalistic and protectionist attitudes on the other; the need to protect the cultural and linguistic diversity of the less powerful and less numerous communities, and the often precarious equilibrium generated by supranational migratory flows have led to the continuous re-evaluation of language policies aiming to foster integration and inclusion through forward- looking social and academic programmes. These are the considerations from which this project took shape when such covidious times were far removed from our imagination. In this first chapter the focus is on multilingualism as the common thread that binds the different responses from current research in the field of language education. We feel such a thread is still recognisable in spite of all the disruptive recent events which have, of course, produced crucial changes in language practice. We are also aware that some relevant issues are gaining prominence and terrain though they have not been considered in this volume. We will recall them at the end of the chapter as the possible agenda for future studies. Although it is impossible to describe all the different aspects of multilingualism that academic research has been investigating in recent years, in this introductory chapter we will set the scene by mentioning some of them in order to offer a number of thought-provoking perspectives on multilingual education.