Algorithmic Mediation and Linguistic Futures: Power, Pedagogy, and Practice in Multilingual Worlds

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Published: Dec 31, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52919/ijmlsp.v7i02.118
Keywords:
Algorithmic multilingualism, AI-mediated pedagogy, Linguistic governance, Low-resource languages, Critical language policy, Sociotechnical inclusion, Educational linguistics

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Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu
University of Leicester – United Kingdom
Ghania Ouahmiche
University of Oran2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed - Algeria

Abstract

This issue of the International Journal of Multilingualism and Languages for Specific Purposes (IJMLSP) brings together cutting-edge research that interrogates the evolving relationships among language, technology, policy, and society in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and intensified multilingual contact. Across diverse geopolitical contexts, ranging from maritime academies and secondary schools to legal frameworks governing indigenous languages, the contributions collectively illuminate how linguistic practices are being reconfigured through algorithmic mediation, institutional regulation, and sociocultural negotiation. Several articles foreground the pedagogical implications of AI-driven tools in English for specific purposes (ESP), bilingual education, and professional training. These studies demonstrate that artificial intelligence, when deployed critically and context-sensitively, can enhance learner engagement, professional simulation, and curriculum innovation, while simultaneously raising concerns about overreliance, epistemic authority, and disciplinary misalignment. Complementing these applied perspectives, other contributions adopt linguistically grounded and sociopolitical lenses, examining morphosyntactic flexibility in Yoruba, computational marginalization in low-resource languages such as Malayalam, and code-switching as identity work in African and South Asian higher education contexts. A central unifying thread across the issue is the tension between inclusion and control. Whether manifested in language policy discourse, AI-mediated assessment, or institutional language choice, linguistic inclusion often coexists with subtle mechanisms of regulation and hierarchy. The critical discourse analysis of Taiwan’s Indigenous Language Development Act exemplifies how legal language symbolically recognizes rights while delimiting their practical enactment, a dynamic echoed in educational and technological settings elsewhere in the volume. Taken together, the articles argue for a reconceptualization of multilingualism not merely as linguistic diversity, but as a dynamic field shaped by power, ideology, technology, and agency. This issue thus advances an interdisciplinary agenda that bridges applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, computational linguistics, education, and critical policy studies, offering timely insights for scholars, educators, and policymakers committed to more equitable and sustainable linguistic futures.   

Article Details

How to Cite
Egri Ku-Mesu, K., & Ouahmiche, G. (2025). Algorithmic Mediation and Linguistic Futures: Power, Pedagogy, and Practice in Multilingual Worlds . International Journal of Multilingualism and Languages for Specific Purposes , 7(02), 10-19. https://doi.org/10.52919/ijmlsp.v7i02.118
Issue
Vol 7 No 02 (2025): IJMLSP Volume: 07 Issue 02/ December2025
Section
Articles
Author Biographies

Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu, University of Leicester – United Kingdom

Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and TESOL at the University of Leicester. She is an applied linguist with a multidisciplinary background in languages, literatures and cultures. She has taught and supervised at Hungarian and British universities at under- and postgraduate level in the broad disciplinary areas of English language and linguistics; English, American and postcolonial literature; English teacher training and education; and various areas of applied linguistics. She also taught English for specific purposes to students specializing in medicine, biology, physics and computer science, Russian to students specializing in Russian language and literature, and Hungarian to speakers of other languages. As Head of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) for a pathway organization, she managed the delivery of EAP programs and supported teachers across sixteen countries in Asia, Africa, South America and Europe. She is an experienced external examiner in EAP, currently fulfilling her duties at the University of Westminster, UK. Her research interests fall within the fields of postcolonial and multilingual literature, cross-cultural pragmatics, World Englishes, sociolinguistics and cultural text-analysis. She is also interested in intercultural communication, multilingualism in language teaching and learning, English language teaching, English teacher education, management in English language teaching, and an intersectional analytical approach to all these areas. She is a member of several professional associations, including the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL), the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA), and the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL). She serves on the board of international journals as Editor and Associate Editor and is a peer reviewer for academic and professional journals, among them Applied Linguistics (Oxford University Press). She is Editor-in-Chief of the IATEFL ESPSIG journal Professional and Academic English.

Ghania Ouahmiche, University of Oran2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed - Algeria

Ouahmiche Ghania is a full Professor of Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, and Language Sciences at University of Oran 2, in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Department of English. She holds two Ph. Ds—one in Sociolinguistics and Language Planning and another in French Didactics and Language Sciences—and a Licence in Theology and Religious Studies. With over 26 years of experience teaching English at University of Oran, she began her academic career in 1998 as a part-time instructor in the Department of English. Prof Ghania Ouahmiche has held several roles, including Editor-in-Chief of Traduction et Langues, the Journal of Translation and Languages TRANSLANG, since 2015, Head of Translation and Methodology Laboratory TRANSMED since 2021, and Head of the Master's Program in ESP and Specialized Discourses. In November 2024, she was appointed Chair of the Commission of Visibility and Ranking at University of Oran 2. Her research interests cover a range of fields within her areas of expertise, including English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Phonetics and Phonology, Translation Studies, and Theology and Religious Studies. She has coordinated and led a large number of research projects, demonstrating her expertise in various academic and scientific domains. Also, she has chaired numerous national and international colloquia and symposiums, demonstrating her prominent role in academic events. 

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