Bi/Multilingualism and the history of language learning and teaching

Abstract

The papers collected in this issue of Language & History were, with one exception, first presented at the HoLLTnet international meeting ‘Bi/ Multilingualism and the History of Language Learning and Teaching’ which we co-organised with Professor Giovanni Iamartino (University of Milan), and which was held at the University of Reading on 6 and 7 July 2018. HoLLTnet (www.hollt.net) is a Research Network of AILA (Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée) and was founded in 2015 to stimulate research into the history of language learning and teaching (‘HoLLT’) within applied linguistics internationally. Building on several successful previous colloquia (www.hollt.net/events.html), the Reading conference aimed to situate HoLLT in wider contexts of multilingualism across time and space, as well as to shed light on bilingual aspects of learner/teacher biography and learning/teaching method which may have been neglected in the past. We are grateful to the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism and the School of Humanities, University of Reading, for their generous support of the event. We would also like to thank all the participants for contributing to such a stimulating and enjoyable conference. A total of 32 paperswere presented at the conference, of which those included in this volume are a small, but representative, sample. The range of historical contexts explored by participants was exceptionally diverse – from the seventh century BCE to the twenty-first CE, and including every continent except Australasia and Antarctica. We are pleased that this diversity is also reflected in the papers included here. Adopting a broad chronological and geographical remit allowed for intercultural, indeed, interdisciplinary, dialogue, providing further evidence that HoLLT is beginning to thrive as a ‘newly emerging interdisciplinary, intercultural and plurilinguistic field of enquiry’ (McLelland and Smith 2018: 1). Participants discussed and applied methodologies from missionary linguistics, postcolonial studies, Classics, Egyptology and lifewriting, within a shared applied linguistic framework.