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.

In this introduction, the four editors of the collective volume outline its origins and objectives. By tracing the history of AILA congresses through the archives of the International Association of Applied Linguistics, the introduction contextualizes and situates the 2023 AILA Congress held in Lyon — centered on diversity and social cohesion in a globalized world — within a broader landscape. It belongs to the AILA Congress Anniversary Lab including AILA 2024 in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), which celebrated sixty years of Applied Linguistics since the establishment in France, in 1964, of both AILA and its French affiliate, AFLA. This opening chapter highlights how the fourteen contributions, presented in a range of formats (academic narratives, research articles, epistemological position papers), collectively address the question of how Applied Linguistics can respond to real-world problems. Fifteen applied linguists contribute to this reflection, examining how the past, present, and future intersect to acknowledge that discourses shape our contemporary world.

This paper discusses issues of language diversity and inclusion in the context of bilingual language acquisition, with a focus on heritage language development. The lack of diversity and representation in language acquisition research in general and in bilingual acquisition in particular is highlighted. Diversification in our work involves moving from bilingual to trilingual acquisition, and from homeland to heritage contexts in the creation of the Child Heritage Chinese Corpus. Examples are drawn from Chinese-English language pairs in homeland and heritage contexts. A heritage trilingual child’s code-mixed utterances are shown to be more complex than monolingual utterances, providing a novel window into translanguaging in heritage contexts. This suggests that translanguaging enables him to pool his language resources to express more complex content.

Despite wide-ranging research on bilingual children, many myths about early child bilingualism prevail. These myths can be harmful to bilingual children and their families. They may threaten children’s and families’ Harmonious Bilingualism, viz., their language-related well-being. To counter this, applied linguists should make a concerted effort to communicate solid research results to a wide range of people impacting children’s development, such as parents, pediatricians, early childhood counselors, and teachers. Knowing about the science will empower parents and form a basis for professionals to adjust their beliefs and ensuing actions. There are currently several research-based easily accessible resources available but applied linguists must do more so bilingual children and their families can experience Harmonious Bilingualism.

This paper explores my efforts at representing research aesthetically rather than empirically in the AILA keynote I gave in Lyon in 2023. I consider the ethical underpinnings of this direction as I attempted to engage my audience beyond argumentation. The paper is a personal account of what I hoped to achieve, illustrating how my biography shaped the talk I gave as well as the risks I felt I was taking. I describe my attempt to open up a space for my audience to dwell within the musical range of 15 individual and choral voices each of whom can be said to signify powerfully beyond what they said, not least in what their voices said to me. I explore the languaging of these voices, pointing to the possibilities of reverberation and audience connection, inviting an “appreciation of voice and its semiotic excess” (Deumert, 2023, p. 919). I describe the curation process as an ethical responsibility and a personal vulnerability. I draw on recent work in applied linguistics which recognizes the limits of language-as-a-system-of-representation, exploring epistemological repertories offered through the arts. In this account, I join other applied linguists venturing beyond the academic article or keynote talk to portray truth in ways which strive to bring together intellectual rigour and aesthetic sensibility. Genres which push us to be self-conscious about what we are saying, and consider who we are including or omitting from the picture, appear to be on the increase.

This chapter introduces forensic linguistics as a specialised field of applied linguistics. It addresses the challenges and particular issues that linguistics faces when applied to language as evidence. The focus is on the linguistic trace, its characteristics, and the different conceptions of the idiolect. How these align with or contradict forensic principles is explored from an epistemological and linguistic perspective. Other aspects, such as the appropriate theoretical framework and the role of the expert witness, are also discussed as they influence the acceptance of forensic linguistic work. The chapter advocates for a more differentiated view of forensic linguistics, not only as an applied, but also as a forensic science.

We introduce the theoretical approach of pluriverse, developed by Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar, to propose an epistemological reflection on the role of applied linguistics in the face of the structural challenges facing contemporary societies. We emphasize that anthropology and applied linguistics have a shared interest in the relationship between social and cultural practices, including language, and the environments in which these practices take place. Escobar’s proposal is therefore relevant to linguistics as it invites us to explore the role of the researcher in the field and to take greater account of the environment as an actor in social life. Finally, we discuss some methods specific to linguistics. These could be used to study the upheavals in the relations between populations and their environment, in the context of the ecological crisis.

This paper reflects a personal journey as a researcher in Language Education. It emphasizes the need for empirical data based on sensory experience and observation and for a transdisciplinary approach. A theoretical framework based on a vast array of scientific domains highlights embodied mind and cognition, and the construct of free won’t which alters conceptions of agency. It leads to an epistemological position that questions the validity of positivist constructs and common-sense representations. As this may increase the distance between commonly held positions concerning knowledge, society, language and culture, it runs the risk of isolating researchers from the public at large. In order to bridge that gap the construct of detached involvement proves pertinent to implement renewed research and project procedures based on a bottom-up approach in which a common initial discourse will be constructed.

This article draws on written and oral exchanges between the authors in preparation for a video capsule series celebrating key figures in AILA history at the 2023 Lyon Congress. Diane Larsen-Freeman’s work on the nature of language and the learning and teaching of language needs no introduction: here we focus on three aspects of the field where her contribution has been particularly impactful. The first part of the chapter considers the ‘social turn’ in applied linguistics and Larsen-Freeman’s analysis of the important contribution to this new direction by Firth and Wagner (1996, 1997). Second, we examine the development of the domain of research known as complex dynamics systems theory (CDST) in collaboration between Larsen-Freeman and colleagues de Bot, Lowie, and Verspoor in the Netherlands. The final section of the chapter reflects Larsen-Freeman’s concern throughout her career for humanist aspects of aims and methods in applied linguistics and the relevance of this approach to questions of diversity and inclusiveness in today’s complex, interconnected world.

The chapter offers a critical survey of the contribution of Applied Linguistics (AL) to the organization of the teaching of French as a foreign language in post-war France and of the controversy that arose in the 1970s over the role of applied linguistics in foreign language teaching. In the 1950s, a vast investigation on spoken French, le français fondamental, played a major role in the shaping of the teaching of French as a foreign language. In the 60s, the Centre de linguistique appliquée (CLAB) (1958) was founded in Besançon, France. Some years later, the Association Française de Linguistique Appliquée (AFLA) was created, as well as the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA), which held its first international Congress in Nancy (France) in 1966. Early in the 70’s, a controversy broke out over the dominance of Applied Linguistics in the teaching of French as a foreign language. This dispute led to the emergence of a “new” discipline, Didactique des langues étrangères (Foreign Language Didactics, FLD). The chapter analyses the part played by major actors and institutions in the controversy over Applied Linguistics in France, and the social, epistemological, and ideological underpinnings of their actions.

This chapter revisits the foundational history of the French Association of Applied Linguistics (AFLA), established in 1964, to explore the epistemological and political dimensions shaping the emergence of applied linguistics in France. Drawing on archival materials from the Bureau of Studies and Liaison (BEL), the analysis traces how post-war cultural diplomacy and strategic language policies influenced the institutionalization of the discipline. The 1961 conference organized by BEL is examined as a pivotal moment, revealing tensions between linguistic theory and pedagogical practice, and highlighting the dual objectives of promoting French language abroad and legitimizing applied linguistics within academia. The chapter argues that AFLA’s development was deeply intertwined with state-sponsored efforts to disseminate French and with the quest for disciplinary recognition.

This article considers the long-standing problem–solution orientation in Applied Linguistics and reflects on some of the questions it raises for the field. Rather than assuming that language-related issues naturally present themselves as problems to be solved, the paper suggests that it is important to pay attention to the ways in which they are framed, the kinds of solutions that are envisaged, and the implications these processes have for the discipline. It points to the value of adopting perspectives that encourage us to take historical, social, and political conditions into account, and that remind us of both the possibilities and the limits of linguistic interventions. In this way, the article aims to contribute to ongoing discussions about the role of Applied Linguistics in engaging with real-world concerns.

The diversity of research carried out under the name of applied linguistics can be seen as evidence of the vitality of the field, but the diversity seems primarily to relate to the range of disciplinary enquiry that it makes reference to. I argue that this disciplinary focus has the effect of distracting attention from what is claimed to be the defining purpose of applied linguistics, which is to engage with language problems that are actually experienced by language users and learners in the real world. If this claim is to be validated, it is the diversity of this experience that applied linguistic research needs to engage with, and so made relevant to the immediate realities of the contemporary world.

The International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) was founded in 1964 in France as a global association to promote the study and application of linguistics to real-world problems. Over the decades, AILA has expanded into a worldwide network of national affiliates, organizing congresses, research networks, and publications that address issues such as language education, multilingualism, linguistic discrimination, and language policy and planning. In recent years, AILA has marked an important milestone: its diamond jubilee celebrating 60 years. The 20th World Congress was held in Lyon, France in 2023 and the 21st World Congress took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2024. This epilogue gives a short account of AILA’s origins, evolution, congresses and ongoing contributions to advancing applied linguistics as a dynamic and socially responsive field.

This postface celebrates AILA’s 60-year journey by reflecting on the visible brilliance and invisible labor that have shaped Applied Linguistics as a global, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged field. Drawing on metaphors of diamonds and mines, it highlights the duality between recognition and invisibility in language work — both in academia and society. It traces the evolution of Applied Linguistics from structuralist beginnings to its critical, decolonial, and transdisciplinary present, emphasizing AILA’s leadership in fostering multilingualism, equity, and justice. Looking ahead, it calls for ethical engagement with artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and global challenges while reaffirming AILA’s mission to advance research that is both rigorous and socially relevant.

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.

In this introduction, the four editors of the collective volume outline its origins and objectives. By tracing the history of AILA congresses through the archives of the International Association of Applied Linguistics, the introduction contextualizes and situates the 2023 AILA Congress held in Lyon — centered on diversity and social cohesion in a globalized world — within a broader landscape. It belongs to the AILA Congress Anniversary Lab including AILA 2024 in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), which celebrated sixty years of Applied Linguistics since the establishment in France, in 1964, of both AILA and its French affiliate, AFLA. This opening chapter highlights how the fourteen contributions, presented in a range of formats (academic narratives, research articles, epistemological position papers), collectively address the question of how Applied Linguistics can respond to real-world problems. Fifteen applied linguists contribute to this reflection, examining how the past, present, and future intersect to acknowledge that discourses shape our contemporary world.

This paper discusses issues of language diversity and inclusion in the context of bilingual language acquisition, with a focus on heritage language development. The lack of diversity and representation in language acquisition research in general and in bilingual acquisition in particular is highlighted. Diversification in our work involves moving from bilingual to trilingual acquisition, and from homeland to heritage contexts in the creation of the Child Heritage Chinese Corpus. Examples are drawn from Chinese-English language pairs in homeland and heritage contexts. A heritage trilingual child’s code-mixed utterances are shown to be more complex than monolingual utterances, providing a novel window into translanguaging in heritage contexts. This suggests that translanguaging enables him to pool his language resources to express more complex content.

Despite wide-ranging research on bilingual children, many myths about early child bilingualism prevail. These myths can be harmful to bilingual children and their families. They may threaten children’s and families’ Harmonious Bilingualism, viz., their language-related well-being. To counter this, applied linguists should make a concerted effort to communicate solid research results to a wide range of people impacting children’s development, such as parents, pediatricians, early childhood counselors, and teachers. Knowing about the science will empower parents and form a basis for professionals to adjust their beliefs and ensuing actions. There are currently several research-based easily accessible resources available but applied linguists must do more so bilingual children and their families can experience Harmonious Bilingualism.

This paper explores my efforts at representing research aesthetically rather than empirically in the AILA keynote I gave in Lyon in 2023. I consider the ethical underpinnings of this direction as I attempted to engage my audience beyond argumentation. The paper is a personal account of what I hoped to achieve, illustrating how my biography shaped the talk I gave as well as the risks I felt I was taking. I describe my attempt to open up a space for my audience to dwell within the musical range of 15 individual and choral voices each of whom can be said to signify powerfully beyond what they said, not least in what their voices said to me. I explore the languaging of these voices, pointing to the possibilities of reverberation and audience connection, inviting an “appreciation of voice and its semiotic excess” (Deumert, 2023, p. 919). I describe the curation process as an ethical responsibility and a personal vulnerability. I draw on recent work in applied linguistics which recognizes the limits of language-as-a-system-of-representation, exploring epistemological repertories offered through the arts. In this account, I join other applied linguists venturing beyond the academic article or keynote talk to portray truth in ways which strive to bring together intellectual rigour and aesthetic sensibility. Genres which push us to be self-conscious about what we are saying, and consider who we are including or omitting from the picture, appear to be on the increase.

This chapter introduces forensic linguistics as a specialised field of applied linguistics. It addresses the challenges and particular issues that linguistics faces when applied to language as evidence. The focus is on the linguistic trace, its characteristics, and the different conceptions of the idiolect. How these align with or contradict forensic principles is explored from an epistemological and linguistic perspective. Other aspects, such as the appropriate theoretical framework and the role of the expert witness, are also discussed as they influence the acceptance of forensic linguistic work. The chapter advocates for a more differentiated view of forensic linguistics, not only as an applied, but also as a forensic science.

We introduce the theoretical approach of pluriverse, developed by Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar, to propose an epistemological reflection on the role of applied linguistics in the face of the structural challenges facing contemporary societies. We emphasize that anthropology and applied linguistics have a shared interest in the relationship between social and cultural practices, including language, and the environments in which these practices take place. Escobar’s proposal is therefore relevant to linguistics as it invites us to explore the role of the researcher in the field and to take greater account of the environment as an actor in social life. Finally, we discuss some methods specific to linguistics. These could be used to study the upheavals in the relations between populations and their environment, in the context of the ecological crisis.

This paper reflects a personal journey as a researcher in Language Education. It emphasizes the need for empirical data based on sensory experience and observation and for a transdisciplinary approach. A theoretical framework based on a vast array of scientific domains highlights embodied mind and cognition, and the construct of free won’t which alters conceptions of agency. It leads to an epistemological position that questions the validity of positivist constructs and common-sense representations. As this may increase the distance between commonly held positions concerning knowledge, society, language and culture, it runs the risk of isolating researchers from the public at large. In order to bridge that gap the construct of detached involvement proves pertinent to implement renewed research and project procedures based on a bottom-up approach in which a common initial discourse will be constructed.

This article draws on written and oral exchanges between the authors in preparation for a video capsule series celebrating key figures in AILA history at the 2023 Lyon Congress. Diane Larsen-Freeman’s work on the nature of language and the learning and teaching of language needs no introduction: here we focus on three aspects of the field where her contribution has been particularly impactful. The first part of the chapter considers the ‘social turn’ in applied linguistics and Larsen-Freeman’s analysis of the important contribution to this new direction by Firth and Wagner (1996, 1997). Second, we examine the development of the domain of research known as complex dynamics systems theory (CDST) in collaboration between Larsen-Freeman and colleagues de Bot, Lowie, and Verspoor in the Netherlands. The final section of the chapter reflects Larsen-Freeman’s concern throughout her career for humanist aspects of aims and methods in applied linguistics and the relevance of this approach to questions of diversity and inclusiveness in today’s complex, interconnected world.

The chapter offers a critical survey of the contribution of Applied Linguistics (AL) to the organization of the teaching of French as a foreign language in post-war France and of the controversy that arose in the 1970s over the role of applied linguistics in foreign language teaching. In the 1950s, a vast investigation on spoken French, le français fondamental, played a major role in the shaping of the teaching of French as a foreign language. In the 60s, the Centre de linguistique appliquée (CLAB) (1958) was founded in Besançon, France. Some years later, the Association Française de Linguistique Appliquée (AFLA) was created, as well as the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA), which held its first international Congress in Nancy (France) in 1966. Early in the 70’s, a controversy broke out over the dominance of Applied Linguistics in the teaching of French as a foreign language. This dispute led to the emergence of a “new” discipline, Didactique des langues étrangères (Foreign Language Didactics, FLD). The chapter analyses the part played by major actors and institutions in the controversy over Applied Linguistics in France, and the social, epistemological, and ideological underpinnings of their actions.

This chapter revisits the foundational history of the French Association of Applied Linguistics (AFLA), established in 1964, to explore the epistemological and political dimensions shaping the emergence of applied linguistics in France. Drawing on archival materials from the Bureau of Studies and Liaison (BEL), the analysis traces how post-war cultural diplomacy and strategic language policies influenced the institutionalization of the discipline. The 1961 conference organized by BEL is examined as a pivotal moment, revealing tensions between linguistic theory and pedagogical practice, and highlighting the dual objectives of promoting French language abroad and legitimizing applied linguistics within academia. The chapter argues that AFLA’s development was deeply intertwined with state-sponsored efforts to disseminate French and with the quest for disciplinary recognition.

This article considers the long-standing problem–solution orientation in Applied Linguistics and reflects on some of the questions it raises for the field. Rather than assuming that language-related issues naturally present themselves as problems to be solved, the paper suggests that it is important to pay attention to the ways in which they are framed, the kinds of solutions that are envisaged, and the implications these processes have for the discipline. It points to the value of adopting perspectives that encourage us to take historical, social, and political conditions into account, and that remind us of both the possibilities and the limits of linguistic interventions. In this way, the article aims to contribute to ongoing discussions about the role of Applied Linguistics in engaging with real-world concerns.

The diversity of research carried out under the name of applied linguistics can be seen as evidence of the vitality of the field, but the diversity seems primarily to relate to the range of disciplinary enquiry that it makes reference to. I argue that this disciplinary focus has the effect of distracting attention from what is claimed to be the defining purpose of applied linguistics, which is to engage with language problems that are actually experienced by language users and learners in the real world. If this claim is to be validated, it is the diversity of this experience that applied linguistic research needs to engage with, and so made relevant to the immediate realities of the contemporary world.

The International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) was founded in 1964 in France as a global association to promote the study and application of linguistics to real-world problems. Over the decades, AILA has expanded into a worldwide network of national affiliates, organizing congresses, research networks, and publications that address issues such as language education, multilingualism, linguistic discrimination, and language policy and planning. In recent years, AILA has marked an important milestone: its diamond jubilee celebrating 60 years. The 20th World Congress was held in Lyon, France in 2023 and the 21st World Congress took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2024. This epilogue gives a short account of AILA’s origins, evolution, congresses and ongoing contributions to advancing applied linguistics as a dynamic and socially responsive field.

This postface celebrates AILA’s 60-year journey by reflecting on the visible brilliance and invisible labor that have shaped Applied Linguistics as a global, interdisciplinary, and socially engaged field. Drawing on metaphors of diamonds and mines, it highlights the duality between recognition and invisibility in language work — both in academia and society. It traces the evolution of Applied Linguistics from structuralist beginnings to its critical, decolonial, and transdisciplinary present, emphasizing AILA’s leadership in fostering multilingualism, equity, and justice. Looking ahead, it calls for ethical engagement with artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and global challenges while reaffirming AILA’s mission to advance research that is both rigorous and socially relevant.