Partnering for the call on safeguarding language diversity

Our team is particularly interested in family language policies, minority language development, and multilingual practices in communities that are often underrepresented in research and policy.

Our current project focuses especially on Sub-Saharan African families in European multilingual contexts. These communities represent extraordinary linguistic diversity, yet their languages and experiences often remain invisible in academic research, educational systems, and policy frameworks. This makes them particularly relevant for discussions on linguistic diversity, heritage language maintenance, and linguistic justice in Europe.

Our interest in the Horizon Europe topic Safeguarding Linguistic Diversity in Europe grows directly out of our ongoing research on how diasporic families negotiate, maintain, lose, or reappropriate their heritage languages across generations. We study how language choices are shaped by family dynamics, educational environments, and broader societal ideologies, but also how they relate to identity, belonging, and wellbeing.

A central dimension of our work is a decolonisation-informed perspective on language and research. We are deeply concerned with the responsibility of researchers toward the communities we work with. This means constantly reflecting on whose knowledge is valued, who benefits from research, and whether research itself makes sense from the participants’ point of view. Rather than conducting research “about” communities, we are committed to conducting research “with” communities, through participatory, collaborative, and reflexive methodologies. 

Within a consortium, we offer complementary interdisciplinary expertise. Our work combines linguistic ethnography, second language acquisition research, and longitudinal studies of heritage language development. We have strong experience in language proficiency assessment in multilingual populations and in the study of heritage language and culture education.  

Because we are a university of teacher education we also provide a direct bridge between research, classroom practice, teacher training, and educational policy. This allows us to translate research findings into pedagogical approaches and policy-relevant recommendations.

In the context of the topic S_afeguarding Linguistic Diversity in Europe_, we can contribute particularly to understanding good practices of multilingualism and language maintenance, investigating intergenerational language transmission, studying minority language development and its links to wellbeing, and analysing heritage language teaching and learning. We also bring strong experience in engaging underserved and linguistically invisible communities through participatory research designs. 

Overall, our added value lies in combining rigorous research with a socially and ethically responsible approach, ensuring that safeguarding linguistic diversity is not only studied as an academic issue, but also addressed as a matter of inclusion, equity, and meaningful impact for the communities concerned.

 We would be delighted to explore possible collaborations.

Thank you very much.