https://doi.org/10.14483/22487085.13193
Although it might be commonplace to mention it, applied linguistics is becoming a rhizomatic field of inquiry with emerging poles of interest and practice in the various contexts where languages are learned and taught. The 18th World Congress of Applied Linguistics 2017 in Rio de Janeiro featured a diversity of topics that illustrate it. Applied linguists from all over the world attended and presented on old and new topics that included Queering Applied Linguistics, Colonization: Histories about languages and identities in the border Brasil-Paraguay, Intercultural competence, gender in political discourses, conversation analysis, a corpus based history of applied linguistics, forensic dialectology in Brazilian Portuguese; discourse, reproduction and citizenship; transglossia and liberated women identity in a peripheral south Asian country; English as an additional language, English as lingua franca, functional analysis of internet language use, language education policy, learning English as a second language, language impairment, bilingualism; multilingualism as a resource, multiliteracies in language teacher education; academic literacies; identities, emotions and investment in multilingual's multimodal production; teacher' identity transformations during their practice; multimodal discourses in interactive practices in WhatsApp, to mention some.
Most of these poles of interest have to do with the increasing impact of technologies in the sociosemiotic landscape of our contemporary communities. One, then, wonders about the directions our professional field may take when faced with new generations of learners that live on and from the screen and how to educate teachers that can use these new ways to communicate in the service of a critical education. Texting, messaging, Skypeing, whatsapping, voicing, videoing and more are communicative practices that engage a new kind of social networking which our pedagogies need to incorporate. Yet, in Latinamerica the inclusion of these practices should align with larger educational goals for social justice, equality, respect for diversity and democracy that orient modern societies and that call for critical approaches in applied linguistics.
In this 20th anniversary issue of CALJ we present papers dealing with Video-
Mediated Listening and Multiliteracies, recognizing metaphors in literature by young schooling children, mediation processes in learning languages, Types of listening comprehension in a Chilean EFL textbook, Skype sessions as a way to provide additional oral practice of English university students, Combining the strategies of using focused written corrective feedback: a study with upper-elementary Chilean EFL learners, Using Metacognitive Strategies to Raise Awareness of Stress and Intonation, Iranian EFL Learners’ Realization of Condolence Speech Act: An Interlanguage Pragmatics Study, Promoting Meaningful Encounters as a Way to Enhance Intercultural Competences.
The diversity reflected in these contributions that include authors from four different countries: Colombia, Brasil, Chile and Iran evidence the maturity of the field and the increasing wealth of local knowledge generated in the South. In its 20th birthday, CALJ looks ahead to a challenging and promising scenario where the networks of applied linguists keep searching for the best conditions for language learning and share their findings with the professional and academic communities. At the same time, CALJ expresses its gratitude to all those who contributed during these 20 years to make the journal a solid academic reference in language learning and teaching.
Amparo Clavijo Olarte PhD