Multilingualism and Specialized Languages: A Keyword-Based Approach to Research Publications

Abstract

LSP (Languages for Specific Purposes) research can be represented by publications in a highly ranked international research journal, Ibérica, belonging to AELFE (European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes), and the international AELFE conferences. The present study explored these two research outputs as sample resources in order to describe specialized language research foci and directions integrating multilingualism over the past decade (2012–2022). The methodology for this study followed a keyword analysis, based on comparing the journal articles and conference papers with a larger reference corpus of academic writing. The results highlighted LSP research-related keywords at the top of the wordlists and salient thematic denotations derived from the contexts of these keywords. It was found that four main dimensions are distinctive in relation to multilingualism in these texts extracted from the journal articles and conference papers: Methodology, English as a lingua franca, groups of learners, and collaborative projects. While research articles tend to focus on methodological issues, conference papers describe more multilingual projects taking place in LSP contexts. It was also found that multilingualism especially stands out in teaching methods, translation, and lexicology. Findings indicate that multilingual conceptualizations are important, even though English dominates, in LSP research.

1. Introduction

LSP (Languages for Specific Purposes) began to form as an academic area of teaching and research in the 1960s and 1970s, as linguists recognized the need for specialized language analyses. Approaches were made to specialized vocabulary, grammar, discourses, genres, and needs analysis in academic and professional settings [1]. By the early 80s, given the bulk of scholarly work, a first specialized language journal was launched internationally: The Journal of English for Specific Purposes. In Spain, a seminal research article was written by professor Monroy in 1983 [2], reflecting on the importance of integrating these new approaches in Spanish universities; one decade later, different LSP projects would materialize via scientific conferences, journals, and associations [3]. One key association, founded in Madrid in 1992, was AELFE (European Association of Languages for Specific Purposes). It was first conceived as a Spanish association, with annual conferences held in Spain and Portugal, but it started to incorporate more European countries in 2001, when it began to organize international conferences in different parts of Europe.

In 1999, AELFE began publishing its journal, Ibérica, welcoming articles written in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, or German. However, during these early years (1999–2003), the articles in Ibérica were mostly written in English and Spanish, with almost at a 50/50 ratio [4]. These percentages would gradually change during the following years, as English dominated from 2003 to 2012 (76.8 percent) [4] and from 2012 to 2022 (96 percent) [5]. In the AELFE conferences, Spanish was more widely used during the early years (58 percent), but since 2012, the tendency of publishing papers in English has also noticeably increased in conference proceedings (78 percent) [5].

This research background of AELFE can thus provide a suitable scenario where specialized languages can be analyzed in relation to multilingualism. In this scope, multilingualism refers to the languages targeted and analyzed by LSP researchers in miscellaneous academic and professional settings. ESP (English for Specific Purposes) is a major focus, but encompassing languages other than English is a must in LSP circles; in fact, according to scholars and journal editors, multilingual perspectives should be prioritized in LSP [5, 6, 7]. A main argument is that collaboration between experts coming from different specialized language backgrounds can improve not only language and translanguaging learning (i.e., the ability to compare and reflect on different languages in use) but also communicative discipline-specific strategies and resources among LSP learners [8, 9]. Furthermore, multilingualism in LSP should be complemented by multimodal practices, as “everyday workplace literacies are complexly and jointly mediated by a complex array of languages, genres, actors, tropes, objects, media, and modes” [10].

The present study was conceived as a way of dissecting multilingualism in LSP according to two main collections of research published in Spain: AELFE’s high-impact quality research journal, Ibérica (Q1 in language and linguistics in 2022, H-index 24), and its international conference proceedings (published by the universities hosting the events). The fact is that multilingualism is being researched extensively in Europe and other regions, and yet, it is observed that English is often camouflaged “behind a call for multilingualism” [11]. This phenomenon could also be happening in LSP, where English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is frequently the nexus language analyzed in multilingual practices [6].

For this study, two research text collections were made: Articles from Ibérica and papers from AELFE’s conference proceedings between 2012 and 2022 (including both years) in order to apply a keyword analysis. This process meant that the top, widely dispersed keywords in the texts, occurring in at least 50 percent of the texts, were extracted using lexical software. These widely dispersed keywords amounted to five in each collection of texts. The keywords’ lexical collocations (i.e., words that significantly co-occur with each other over a collection of texts) were then analyzed within their different co-texts (surrounding texts) throughout the text sources, and thus, four main dimensions or thematic strands could be identified in relation to a multilingual scope examined in these texts: Methodology, the role of ELF, groups of learners, and collaborative projects.

These co-texts enabled the visualization of key issues because the textual chunks are derived from highly dispersed keyword information [12, 13]. This information was classified into thematic categories, detailing significant ideas, concepts, and developments on multilingualism in LSP. It was thus found that multilingual approaches are relatively often made and/or cited by LSP scholars, whereas ELF is frequently the conductor of these approaches. Various languages are explored too, with a noticeable concentration of multilingual aspects analyzed in the areas of teaching methods, translation, and lexicology. These findings will be contrasted and discussed in order to examine factors and reasons for multilingualism in this chapter. First, a literature review on multilingualism in specialized languages will be provided in the next section. Then, the methodology for this study will be explained in Section 3, followed by findings (Section 4), discussion (5), and conclusions (6).

2. Literature review

According to the literature reviewed (mostly books, chapters, and journal articles over the past 10 years or so), multilingualism is explored in specialized language research, teaching, and learning from several angles. A major perspective is the integration of multilingualism in academic settings where English is the main foreign language exploited. In 2008, the Commission of the European Communities issued a “policy framework for multilingualism” with the objective of enabling multilingual discipline-specific literacies in universities so that more non-native speakers of English could be integrated [6]. Learners may thus become capable of working effectively in English and LOTE (Languages Other Than English) within their disciplinary communities. This legislation scope has generally brought about improvements in terms of language access and development at educational and professional levels in different parts of Europe. However, due to the diversity of Europe, there is still considerable variation across regions in terms of access to language learning. Adhering to one’s native language as a sign of national identity and culture (versus outside factors such as globalization, immigration, and cultural hybridity) also diminishes the need for multilingual foci. This reactionary tendency clashes with pro-multicultural/multilingual approaches in Europe, not only lingua-culturally but also socio-politically.

In academic and professional areas, this double-sided scenario can be observed in the fact that most institutions converge on a multilingual scheme, but few actually apply it [6, 14]. Also, when a foreign language is targeted, English is still the only principal foreign language, often occluding or diminishing the need for other languages [14]. In Spain, for example, although LOTE such as French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Basque, and Catalan are promoted in some contexts, ESP occupies a hegemonic position [6].

ESP and ELF are connected in this approach to multilingual issues in academic and research situations. ELF refers to the use of English by all types of speakers (native and non-native speakers of English) in everyday situations, whereas ESP involves the use of English in order to communicate effectively in academic and professional contexts so that the community of speakers/practitioners, regardless of their nationality, can communicate and transfer/share knowledge within their disciplines and/or work areas [15]. One example is the dissemination of scientific research, where there is a crucial need for “research networking and scientific communication across different cultural contexts and different languages” [16].

Scientists/scholars tend to value English as the main language for the dissemination of science in high prestige research journals and in reputed, widely internationalized monograph series [15]. This leads to ERPP (English for Research Publication Purposes) as an important area of study in ESP. Therefore, the presence of LOTE in these scenarios is marginalized if not suppressed all together, since high-impact publications and international collaborations (where English dominates) are essential for academics so that tenured positions can be secured [17, 18]. The presence of multilingualism also differs according to regions. For example, parallel languages are extensively used in academia and scientific contexts of Scandinavia (e.g., English, Swedish, Finnish) [19], whereas in other regions, such as southern Europe (e.g., France, Spain, Italy), English is not generally used at such proficient levels, and while it is greatly emphasized for high-prestige publication writing, its use decreases in other academic situations, where monolingual L1 communication tends to be the norm [20].

Another important facet of multilingualism in LSP deals with the type of science dissemination. Essentially, there are two types: Global and local. In the first case, high-prestige international journals and books are favored, where linguistic restrictions impose the use of English. In the second case, so-called “periphery” regional journals (usually with less international recognition and/or lower dissemination) tend to be considered as a “graveyard for papers rejected by international (English-written) journals” [21]. A potential reconciling strategy for this unequal status is the dissemination of science in Open Access (OA) media/channels. In this OS (Open Science) approach, more OA journals can be accessed both locally and globally, OS information is readily available and shared worldwide, and scientific blogging can foster the use of more than one language [21].

Researchers favor the use of different languages depending on miscellaneous variables, such as national, institutional, and disciplinary contexts [10, 22]. For example, scientists may describe projects to their peers in their local language in a conference but submit the English version for a wider audience [23]; also, there exists a linguistic differentiation between hard science and social science researchers, as the former write more in English across international contexts, whereas the latter produce more content locally and using their native languages [24]. The so-called phenomenon of “glocalization” tends to occur when specialized languages, deployed in non-anglophone regions, co-exist with the mainstream use of English across all types of academic circles [25]. This co-existence often causes linguistic tensions, especially in so-called semi-periphery countries (i.e., countries where English is less common in daily life, e.g., France, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Poland, and so on), and yet, in these locations, research institutions and agencies tend to require publications in English-written journals for tenure and project concessions [18].

A factor impacting multilingualism positively in LSP is the widespread use of digital genres. These devices incorporate both texts and contexts on the internet, meaning that different languages can be integrated. This phenomenon has been greatly accelerated by digital technologies over the past decade [26]. Such genres, digitally mediated, can appeal to diverse audiences from multiple lingua-cultural backgrounds worldwide, since internet can be accessed almost anywhere. In contrast with non-digital dissemination (e.g., TV or printed material), online genres have provided engaging, dynamic, and versatile means of communicating science to diverse audiences within short time spans [27]. Two examples in OS are the video abstract, where researchers explain their scientific work to semi-expert and lay audiences in different languages, and the research blog, where experts and non-experts from miscellaneous academic contexts can interact [27]. This process of “science mediation” allows for alternative linguistic and epistemic approaches, making access to science more democratic [28]. This democratization process has enabled, for example, traditional epistemic/academic-cultural divides between Western and Eastern regions gradually that dissolve as a result of scientific knowledge updating and sharing (e.g., via OS research platforms, online science videos, vlogs, and academic blogs). In the Humanities, this OA process can also work effectively: For example, online repositories and digital collections are increasingly shared openly across institutions, OS data is provided by research groups and shared via inter-disciplinary projects, and so on. However, for the dissemination of research, the transmission of knowledge tends to be less versatile, being made, to a great extent, via local and international conferences, monographs, and restricted access journals [24]. Additionally, the L1 in most Humanities (non-foreign language related) degrees is often the only language used for academic purposes both online and offline, slowing down diversified, multi-lingual audience engagement practices such as the ones exhibited by digital OS genres today [24, 28].

The expansion of digital communication contributes to the placement of “greater attention on multilingual communication and translanguaging and polylanguaging phenomena” [29]. In this multi-digital scenario, English is de-centered, and LOTE occupy diversified media where “plurilingual genre repertoires” are created [29]. This contribution of online scientific genres to multilingualism is achieved by multidisciplinary and multilingual research collaborations, which can materialize in the form of genre ecologies [29]. For example, research group blogs are often co-constructed by international researchers, who use the digital medium in innovative ways to promote their projects and scientific findings. Thus, by linking research group blogs with other online genres, such as personal websites and video projects in other languages, scholars can enhance information, engage different nationalities, and promote their work. Another example is “citizen science” [29], where multiple languages are used to target diversified participation in scientific projects/causes (e.g., the use of crowdfunding, online surveys, and webinars can enrich and promote research initiatives). Among these digital affordances, machine translation and AI (Artificial Intelligence) resources can increasingly enhance multilingual foci [23]. An example is subtitling in several languages, an embedded feature in online video streaming [23].

Additionally, multimodal practices can be combined with digital literacies in specialized communication and professional discourses. For example, in corporate cultures, semiotic resources, such as visual elements (icons, emoticons, images, and so on), are integrated in written and oral modes (e.g., emails, chats, or live video sessions) in order to enhance communication. In these contexts, speakers of different languages may use either English or LOTE depending on the different tasks carried out and for what purposes. Thus, multimodal literacies are needed in multilingual scenarios so that communication is delivered effectively (e.g., in videoconference meetings with multicultural participants) [10].

Finally, multilingualism is a key objective in various institutions, leading to national and international collaborative LSP projects. One example is the integration of other languages in EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) programs in tertiary and secondary education, which can foster discipline-specific literacies [6, 8, 9, 19, 30]. Another type of collaboration is networked academic cooperation among ELF participants from different institutions across Europe and the USA, helping each other in PBL (Problem-based Learning) and TBL (Task-based Learning) situations demanding cross-linguistic, socio-cultural, and disciplinary competences [15, 31]. These experiences enable LSP practitioners to “understand how language and understanding are effectively negotiated in diverse contexts of intercultural communication” [31]. Other projects for the exploitation of academic literacies in different languages focus on Primary and Secondary Education. Here, CLIL can motivate the use of more than one language inside and outside of class, which may lead to linguistic improvement and plurilingual/pluricultural profitability during schooling. An example can be found in international programs fostering students’ capabilities to amplify their L2 scope, such as trilingual education programs in Spain of English, Spanish, and a third language (e.g., French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan) for academic exchanges and collaboration, depending on the region and its cultural and political interests [32, 33, 34].

A final type of international collaboration in LSP can be observed in multilingual/multicultural corporate settings, where organizations deal with partners across international borders and engage in international interactions for a variety of purposes [10, 35, 36]. In these contexts, ELF becomes BELF (Business English as a Lingua Franca), and it must be mastered by both native and non-native speakers of English. Diverse linguistic devices and paralinguistic resources are deployed, shaping a common translingual/transcultural scenario where participants operate [35]. The focus is world business communication, and in professional sectors of tourism, these communicative exchanges often take place multi-linguistically, with professionals and customers having to accommodate to a common mode where code-switching often occurs [36].

3. Methodology

In this section, the analysis of keywords adopted in this study is described. For this analysis, a lexical software was used: LancsBox 6.0, whose main function is to process electronic texts in a specific collection of texts, also called a representative corpus [37]. The texts were therefore collected, forming such a corpus, representative of specific topics and/or types of discourses for the analysis of discipline-specific lexical items [38]. The present study thus selected all the research journal articles in Ibérica (2012–2022), considered as a first target corpus (i.e., targeted for keyword analysis), with a total of 2,210,290 words; secondly, the AELFE conferences (forming a second target corpus) were selected within the same time period, totaling 263,717 words. These sizes fall within the suitable ranges of words in LSP to analyze key phraseology as rich linguistic information for specific purposes [39].

In the journal corpus, the articles amounted to 214 sources (revistaiberica.org), and in the conference corpus, there were only 75 papers, since only 3 years were selected: 2013 (A Coruña), 2017 (Mérida), and 2021 (Barcelona) (aelfe.org). The reasons were that some conferences did not publish the proceedings (2014, 2016, 2019), and that the resulting publications were made in the form of selected papers, special issues, or monographs (2015, 2018, 2022); additionally, the 2012 volume had been published mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, and in 2020, the conference was not held due to COVID.

Secondly, a crucial step was the choice of a suitable larger reference corpus that could serve as a yardstick for linguistic comparison. The texts in Ibérica and the conferences were academic corpora. Therefore, the reference corpus should be also academic, in the same main language as the target corpora, and it should encompass texts across different academic disciplines. Therefore, the reference corpus selected was BAWE (British Academic Written English Corpus) [40], which contains a total of 8,369,142 words. The corpora were converted into txt format and cleaned of metadata (page headings, publisher information, and hyperlinks) and bibliographic references to retain authors’ main texts.

Then, the first analytical step was to create wordlists from the three corpora by feeding the texts to the software used, LancsBox 6.0. These wordlists appeared in order from top to bottom according to word frequency in the texts. Next, the wordlists were compared statistically according to the standards of the reference corpus [13]. This procedure meant that the software compared the word frequencies from the target corpora with the reference corpus wordlist in order to extract salient target words. Therefore, for example, the word “the” could never be a keyword because it appeared frequently in both target and reference corpora. Instead, the resulting keyword lists contained key content words (nouns, adjectives, verbs) that were highly frequent (distinctive) in the target corpora but not in the reference corpus by comparison. Keywords, in fact, tend to be content words, considered indicators of the thematic essence or “aboutness of the texts” [12].

The next step was to organize the keywords in terms not only of word frequency in the target corpora but also of lexical dispersion, that is, the range of texts where the words occur. Cohen-d, included in LancsBox, is a statistical measurement that calculates the means for each word occurrence in the texts [41]. A mean value indicates the proportion of word use in different texts. For example, the word “the” has a high mean value because it occurs very frequently and across all texts in the corpora. However, it was not identified as a dispersed keyword because its mean value is similar in both target and reference corpora. Instead, the word “language” has a high mean value in the target texts, but its mean value is low, by comparison, in the reference corpus. Therefore, Cohen-d located “language” as a key dispersed lemma (together with its plural “languages”) and registered them as top keywords in the target texts (see Table 1 for the top five keywords in each target corpus).

Keywords and collocations (Ibérica)	Keywords and collocations (conferences)
Specific: Specific + purposes; Discipline + specific; Specific information	Students: Provide + students + with; Number / group of + students; Students from +[country/institution]
Discourse: Discourse + analysis; Academic + discourses; Disciplinary + discourses	Language: [language] + as a foreign language; Language + teaching; Second + language
Language: Language + learning; English + language; Second + language	Contexts: Cultural + contexts; Professional + contexts; Instructional + contexts (MI2)
Linguistic: Linguistic + features; Linguistic + analysis; Linguistic + mechanisms (MI2)	Learning: Teaching + learning; Language + learners; Vocabulary + learners
Genre: Genre + analysis; Academic + genres; Professional + genres	Courses: ESP + courses; Within + courses (MI2); Course + students

Table 1.

Top widely dispersed keywords and collocations.

Next, the top five dispersed keywords, occurring in more than 50 percent of the texts (in both journal articles and conference proceedings), were explored within “networks of intercollocation, including (…) phraseological terms” [13]. These collocations are a “network of lexical relations” that contribute to the identification of the “aboutness of a text” [13]. This view can provide “a way of identifying which words best distinguish the texts of a particular type from another” [42]. In other words, lexical collocations and phraseological items extracted from top keywords in context captured the essence of particular types of discourses and topics [43]. The span for collocation identification was set to five words to the left and five to the right of the keyword. A maximum of three collocations were examined with each keyword (see Table 1). In LancsBox 6.0. [37], T values were used to detect frequent collocation occurrences, whereas M.I.2 scores were applied to reveal the presence of less frequently occurring words, which also significantly collocated [44].

The analysis then moved on to explore the concordances of these statistically significant linguistic items. Concordances are lines of text shown where the collocations and phraseological items occurred in the target texts. The concordance co-texts, that is, the surrounding wider texts of these lines, were thoroughly read and manually annotated according to multilingualism-related aspects. By reading and re-reading these co-texts, and then interpreting them in the light of the full texts (articles and conference papers), the co-texts where references were made to different aspects of multilingualism were selected. As a result, four main dimensions were identified: Methodology, ESL, groups of learners/participants, and LSP projects/collaborations.

In addition, another keyword comparison was made. Texts were categorized according to six thematic panels established by AELFE in the journal and conference proceedings: Genre and discourse, lexicology and terminology, teaching methods, corpus linguistics, use of information technologies, and translation and interpretation studies (aelfe.org). Each category of texts was compared with BAWE, as in the keyword analysis explained above. Dispersed keywords were extracted from each thematic panel in order to see whether the terms “multilingual” and “bilingual” (and their derived word forms) emerged at the top of the lists, which would mean that the thematic panel texts used these concepts significantly (frequently and across texts). Consequently, three thematic divisions were observed to contain these terms at the top of the lists: Translation (in journal articles and conference papers), teaching methods (in the conferences), and lexicology (in the journal).

In the next section, these linguistic findings will be described.

4. Analysis of results

Research dealing with more than one language in Ibérica amounts to approximately 18 percent of the total number of articles (2012–2022), whereas in the conference proceedings, this number significantly increases to 42.6 percent [7]. In the journal, studies including more than one language mostly encompassed European languages (Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Basque, Croatian, Montenegrin, Russian, and Polish), and three papers targeted Arab, Turkish, and Chinese (in addition to English). In the conference proceedings, in addition to different languages, there were more studies focusing on language pairs (e.g., English and Spanish, German and Spanish, English and Italian, and so on).

In these texts, references to multilingual aspects were found with the top dispersed keywords and their collocations/phraseology, as explained in the previous section. Table 1 displays this key linguistic data, which guided the analysis:

The linguistic items in Table 1 appeared more than 20 times in the corpora except for the cases with MI2 in brackets, which indicates that these collocations occurred less than 20 times. For example, the word “mechanisms” co-occurred/collocated with the keyword “linguistic” 18 times. Some derived forms (e.g., the plural “discourses” and “learners”) were also included because of their significant use across texts.

Table 2 shows some textual excerpts (co-texts) where the linguistic items from Table 1 occurred. They are listed under the dimensions of Methodology, ELF, groups of learners, and collaborative projects. Key collocations (from Table 1) appear in bold in Table 2. These selected co-texts serve the purpose of exemplification for the discussion in Section 5 below. For the remaining keyword co-text data, see Supplementary information. The categories are ordered from top to bottom according to their frequency in each corpus (journal articles and conference papers).

CATEGORY/Co-texts (Ibérica)	CATEGORY/Co-texts (conferences)
METHODOLOGY; 1) The discursive representation of international students by three Australian universities is discussed in relation to conceptual shifts in international student education, diversity management and multimodal discourse analysis.; 2) Implications for cross-cultural genre analysis and genre and second language education as language is important for cross-cultural learning; 3) Interviews provide enriching participants’ insights that can support claims about the professional genres; 4) Traced in the linguistic features used in the presentations of Spanish and Russian companies on their websites; 5) Discipline-specific teaching of these collocations is certainly advisable. This might be especially important for non-native speakers of English	COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS; 12) It also provides graduates and doctoral students with Erasmus+ mobility programmes for universities in France, Italy, Romania, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Germany, UK, and Hungary.; 13) Virtual collaboration with partners from other cultural contexts or geographical locations is seen as an integrated part of educational programmes; 14) Integrating media into language teaching intended for teachers and trainers. The platform, material, and package were developed by the project partners in each participating country; 15) On the long-standing tradition of ESP courses at European universities, which place emphasis on students’ academic and disciplinary knowledge
ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA; 6) The English language became a driver to achieve these ideological objectives since it was felt that an alternative political and economic ideology could best be accessed through English. Western business and management consultant firms set up branches in Central Europe, and the need for English to act as a lingua franca.; 7) In Chinese journal articles on English language education, a survey of the Chinese literature indicates that there has been growing interest in the ESP genre; 8) EAL (English as an Additional Language) scholars may be reshaping rhetorical patterns in innovative ways and Anglophone norms are merging with culture-specific linguistic features	GROUPS OF LEARNERS; 16) Immigration has favored the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language, a relatively new subject in our country for diverse groups of immigrant students.; 17) Japanese language learners writing emails would need to learn the correct forms, meanings, and usage of common Japanese emails formulaic sequences in order to convey politeness and familiarity with the genre. Similarly, English language learners in academic contexts have a need to learn other sequences; 18) Small international groups formed by 2 or 3 students from each countries. Students participated in this virtual exchange in their target language (TL) subjects
GROUPS OF LEARNERS; 9) Recognized through the use of hedges, reported to be more abundant in English than in Spanish groups. This coincides with previous work on academic genres in a variety of disciplines.	METHODOLOGY; 19) We set out to provide the master’s students of the Applied Linguistics course with a genre-rich environment by presenting them with two thematic guides, each dealing with the teaching and learning of second/foreign languages.
COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS; 10) The project ran from 1991 to 1999, and was motivated by the post-Soviet Union political changes in that it was designed to reform the teaching and language learning of ESP in 16 Higher Education institutions in Romania and raise English language levels.; 11) The situation started to change in Spain after the publication of the Framework Document of Language Policy for the internationalization of universities, where a linguistic accreditation analysis was carried out	ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA; 20) The great majority of them continue to make these interferences in their second language writing skills. One of the reasons for this to happen is the lack of cultural sensitivity that there exists in the English language curriculum nowadays; 21) Especially the Polish and Spanish writers who use English as a foreign language in business contexts should be more aware of a broader range of linguistic resources that the British use

Table 2.

Examples of textual excerpts/co-texts where keyword collocations occur in each dimension of the two target corpora.

As displayed in Table 2, the co-texts can consist of one or more sentences and more than one keyword collocation (e.g., co-text 18). These textual chunks demonstrate the concentration of key linguistic information denoting ideas related to multilingualism in the texts, which will be discussed in Section 5.

The second keyword analysis, performed in the six thematic panels of AELFE, as mentioned in Section 3, discovered the significant presence of some keywords related to multilingualism. These keywords were only significant in three panels: Translation, Teaching, and Lexicology. Table 3 provides selected examples of co-texts in each category (see Supplementary information for more examples); keywords are shown in bold within these co-texts from the journal and conferences. Implications from these findings will be discussed in the next section.

PANEL/Co-text (Ibérica)	PANEL/Co-text (conferences)
LEXICOLOGY; 1) There is still a considerable number of bilingual—or plurilingual—dictionaries being printed that are virtually word lists with equivalents and almost nothing else; 2) A number of promising bilingual specialized school dictionaries have seen the light in various countries, especially in multilingual countries like South Africa and Estonia; 3) The labelling of a word as a false anglicism should be under constant review, and it may very well happen that what we now consider a slip by a bilingual dictionary is rather an anticipation of what the situation might be in the not-so-far distant future	TEACHING; 5) Para enfrentar con éxito las demandas del mercado laboral actual, multicultural y multilingüe, hemos clasificado las competencias referidas por los empleadores internacionales componentes que conforman la competencia comunicativa intercultural; 6) La educación superior no prepara adecuadamente a los estudiantes para trabajar en contextos empresarios multilingües y multiculturales; 7) Algeria is characterized by an unbalanced Arabic/French bilingualism at both micro and macro levels. French is not parcelled out equally across the Algerian population. It is largely monopolized by the urban and the rich; 8) By means of multicultural and intercultural language awareness through blended Open Education resources in multilingual programs
TRANSLATION; 4) Los alumnos estudian los textos con diccionarios bilingües de Inglés y Español como apoyo a su lectura pero también conceptos a resolver en grupos.	TRANSLATION; 9) The starting point is the premises established by the project WeinApp: Sistema multilingüe de información y recursos vitivinícolas, focused on the study of the lexicon from a constructivist perspective.

Table 3.

Examples of co-texts with top keywords related to multilingualism in three thematic panels of AELFE.

5. Discussion

The results of this study unveil specialized language researchers’ concerns with and foci on multilingual matters according to a shared usage of top keywords across texts in the corpora. Important notions and ideas tend to be signaled by this linguistic information. In this discussion, specific factors and features will be clarified in relation to the analysis of key co-texts (Tables 2 and 3). Hopefully, these glosses and explanations will provide readers with a detailed description of what constitutes key approaches in LSP to multilingualism, which may corroborate, contrast, and/or add conceptual realizations in the literature.

First, key issues are explored in relation to multilingualism across the whole corpora (Table 2). In terms of the methodology employed in these studies, a first major approach is the analysis of specialized texts/discourses/genres. This type of methodology is more recurrent in the journal, focusing on the use of discipline-specific texts and genres across cultural and linguistic backgrounds; this focus is also underscored by the literature [26, 29]. Two examples in Table 2 are co-text 1, pointing to the analysis of multilingual discourses in Australian universities, and co-text 2, which indicates the importance of analyzing multicultural contexts with a methodology based on specialized genre analysis.

According to the data, the discourse analyzed in multilingual settings is often specialized English communication used by native and non-native speakers of English. Other languages are also compared (e.g., Spanish, Turkish, Montenegrin, and Russian, among others). These texts/discursive practices can be exploited in the written mode (e.g., research papers, reports) and/or orally (e.g., lectures, discussions), where multilingual specialists operate.

A second type of methodology in the research deals with ethnographic approaches to both academic and professional settings where more than one language is exploited. L2 (second language) developments are generally addressed by classroom observation, note-taking, recording of professional intercultural communicative exchanges, and discussions/interviews with participants. While journal articles tend to encompass both academic and professional contexts, conference papers focus more on classroom-based research (see co-texts 3 and 19 in Table 2). This distinction may be one of the reasons for the area of teaching methods to tend to include more practical multilingual explorations (as discussed below).

In some studies, multilingual participants’ specialized linguistic-communicative resources and strategies can be appraised by analyzing their deployment of digital technologies and media, where specialized communication takes place. This type of online genre/discourse analysis unveils significant linguistic and socio-pragmatic traits according to lingua-cultural factors [10, 23]. Co-text examples reveal that digital communication often involves professional/academic genres (e.g., co-text 4) and also interactional discourse (e.g., online forums, web-chats), especially in the journal. Thus, multilingualism can occur in cross-cultural analyses that examine features of web-based genres in different languages, such as hyper-textual and audio-visual information in hotel websites for promotion, aiming to appeal to and persuade potential customers from different countries. Other types of online genre communication include more interactive features to engage audiences, as explained in the literature review [24, 28, 29]. An example is the online doctor-patient forum, where participants form a diversified audience in terms of nationalities and degrees of expertise. In these online genres, communicative interactions can take place between experts and non-experts as well as among non-experts facilitating information and helping each other. In spoken genres, an example is specialized communication between multinational company employees from various nationalities in live online video-based collaborative projects, which may include the development of other genres, such as project presentations online and corporate reports. Ethnographic approaches are also included in some studies when, for example, forum or blog experts are interviewed or when company informants are surveyed by LSP researchers in order to contrast their feedback and performance with the communicative features being investigated in these online genres.

Finally, methodological elements are explored at the lexical/terminological level between languages. This approach can target lexical constructions such as collocations, specialized phraseology, and figurative language (e.g., metaphors). In most cases, participants are multilingual learners operating in both university and secondary education settings (see co-text 5).

Next, the “English as a lingua franca” dimension can be scrutinized from three main perfectives. A first major issue being addressed is the conflicting nature of ELF in multilingual scenarios where most participants are non-native speakers of English [16, 21]. This tension can be observed in academic and professional/corporate situations: for example, in the need for learners to have better research/work dissemination skills, higher linguistic competences, and greater capacity for transferring knowledge (see co-texts 20 and 21).

Secondly, the ELF scenario is regarded as an opportunity for multilingual and multicultural learning [6]. Generic competences can be thus exploited linguistically and culturally, and enriching perspectives can be gained in terms of academic and/or professional developments (see co-texts 6 and 7).

Thirdly, ELF is viewed as an opportune space for academic collaboration where non-native speakers of English can contribute epistemic and cultural knowledge in discipline-specific discourses [25]. Two scenarios examined in co-texts are research writers using different phraseological devices and content lecturers deploying linguistic-rhetorical strategies that differ from traditional English strategies. Far from affecting communicative scenarios negatively, these multilingual/multicultural situations can enrich exposure to translanguaging and transcultural phenomena in LSP, such as the hybridization of cultural norms for scientific communication (see co-text 8).

The third dimension, “Groups of learners/participants”, chiefly reflects the diversity of multilingual groups targeted in the studies. More frequently, LSP learners from various countries in Europe are included, but there are also studies integrating multilingualism from the USA and Asia [15, 31]. It is also the case that Spanish students form the target group and their linguistic abilities are compared with native English speakers (see co-text 9). In other cases, Spanish is taught as a foreign language to migrant students, a growing multilingual population, whose work-seeking needs involve a focus on Spanish for specific purposes (co-text 16).

In most cases, cultural distinctions are examined between groups of participants from different nationalities in terms of competence variables. Thus, writing strategies (e.g., how to use persuasion in essays), reading/interpretation techniques (e.g., appraisals in blurbs), rhetorical strategies (e.g., turn-taking in discussions), and lexical-grammatical choices (e.g., formulaic language) are explored across lingua-cultural profiles; an example is co-text 17.

Additionally, a distinct group is noteworthy, mainly in conference papers: International speakers in virtual communication exchanges for intercultural learning. These participants are usually university learners and LSP practitioners in academic and business contexts exploiting intercultural communication via collaborative tasks (co-text 18).

As regards the last thematic category, multilingual collaborative projects, more co-texts were found in the conferences than in the journal. International mobility programs for LSP teaching and learning were found in various cases (co-texts 10 and 12), and there were also instances of international virtual communication programs. These online projects aim at exploring linguistic and communicative issues/competences as well as transversal skills such as leadership, culture, and ethical values (see co-text 13). Another type of multilingual project deals with teaching and learning material design in LSP, developed online collaboratively between different academic institutions inside and outside of Europe (co-text 14).

Finally, there is a salient type of international collaboration that focuses on ELF and EMI, while it also draws attention to other languages in academic and business settings [19, 35]. In these cases, specialized language courses are identified as a common ground where international students can be trained for discipline-specific cooperation (co-text 15). In similar situations, EMI can help to consolidate language policies both globally and locally. This phenomenon can motivate the configuration of multilingual opportunities, such as linguistic accreditation programs for academic purposes (see co-text 11).

In the second keyword analysis (Table 3), the lemmas “multilingual” and “bilingual,” being widely distributed in lexicology and translation articles in the journal and in the teaching methods and translation sections of conference papers, led to the observation of pivotal notions about multilingualism in these contexts.

In the journal, an important methodological issue regarding multilingual dictionaries is raised in relation to a perceived lack of rigorous lexicographic approaches to specialized language study (see co-text 1 in Table 3). Therefore, there seems to be a need for further scrutiny of linguistic analysis and explorations into how languages influence each other across disciplines and professional areas [7]. Another type of lexicological research into bi- and multi-lingual dictionaries compares various minority languages with English in specific fields, such as industry and engineering (see co-text 2). Anglicisms are also addressed as problematic occurrences when ELF dominates specialized language contexts, since translating such anglicisms may be more or less feasible depending on the subject, for example, computer science versus art (see co-text 3).

In the teaching methods section (conferences), authors seem to be more interested in investigating classroom dynamics (see comments on methodology above). Various studies focus on the role of intercultural dynamics for multilingual communication; for example, in business settings, corporate cultures tend to demand specific lingua-cultural competences from the workforce (co-text 5). This focus on multiple cultures is exploited in the LSP classroom, including digitally mediated, discipline-specific communication such as virtual exchanges for multilingual project development. Project-based learning performance observation is crucial for multilingual assessment (see the discussion of the “groups of learners” and “collaborative projects” dimensions above). In digitally mediated multicultural communicative exchanges, the use of translanguaging and translation is observed as important for LSP development. Participants tend to appraise e-learning resources positively for language learning and translation in university settings. Thus, this type of teaching methodology seems to be well-received for multilingual purposes in specialized contexts.

In contrast, a potential obstacle for multilingualism is noticed in the lack or deficiency of multilingual/multicultural training for students prior to entering the job market (co-text 6). Such lower linguistic proficiencies are often observed in semi-periphery regions (e.g., Spain and Italy), where parallel linguistic performance is less common [18]. Also, in some international contexts, bilingual speakers, most often of English, tend to belong to privileged socioeconomic groups (e.g., studying in private academic institutions and/or working in multinational companies). This class-based distinction also exists in other languages, for example, in French in some contexts of Northern Africa (co-text 7). This tension tends to cause socio-cultural divisions in terms of bilinguality (i.e., the trained capacity for simultaneously communicating in two languages fluently) and multilingual leverage.

As previously stated in the literature, in terms of educational programs and collaborations across regions and institutions, the European Language Policy Division supports LSP in Europe with a focus on multilingual EU citizens with intercultural abilities. The reality is that a more monolingual Europe still prevails, adhering to nationalistic and mono-cultural factors, often acting as a centripetal force against multilingual perspectives. Therefore, in order to push forward a multilingual agenda, blended teaching and learning programs at different educational levels (e.g., university, vocational schooling, and so on) can encourage multilingualism through international projects (co-text 8). In universities, these developments often take place by working on bilingual blended projects via open access platforms.

Finally, as regards the area of translation, mainly European languages are targeted: English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, and Galician. The disciplinary areas where multi- and/or bilingual approaches are made also vary: Health sciences, Art, Industry, Economics, and Engineering. Translation projects are described by classifying multilingual lexicons semantically and conceptually (see co-text 9). The purpose is often to provide users/professionals/learners with bilingual resources that they can use online.

In other cases, multilingual translation studies address the need for lexicological and terminological refinements in specialized areas to improve and update terminology equivalents. The need for coping with effective methods in specialized translation is highlighted (see co-text 4). An example described in different sources is medical communication, where medical jargon is examined in English and other languages. For instance, metaphors in German are analyzed as rich linguistic devices for translators in order to convey medical concepts to the lay public.

6. Conclusions

This study has presented keyword-inferred information about how multilingualism is currently addressed and investigated in LSP studies according to two research dissemination channels: the journal Ibérica and AELFE’s conferences. Distinctive concerns and foci have been covered. These issues often coincide with the literature, and in the LSP corpora examined, specialized language use is specified by describing and analyzing distinct settings, groups, and situations. For example, multilingual competence includes intercultural approaches and multimodal skills, and in the corpus texts, this perspective is often analyzed in relation to virtual environments and genres (e.g., corporate conferences, digital blogs, online lectures, and so on). These multilingual speakers/learners share discipline-specific objectives (e.g., working on international projects), which increases the need for integrating multi-linguistic and transversal skills in the curriculum. These contextual traits tend to be emphasized by methods-focused studies interested in exploring more than one language used in specialized settings.

In these specialized settings, the role of translation and translanguaging is accentuated for academic and professional/business purposes where ELF is the common language. Other language pairs (e.g., Spanish and Italian, German and Spanish, and so on) and multicultural elements (e.g., different nationalities in a multinational corporate environment) are also targeted. Additionally, a shared demand for collaborative multilingual projects in LSP is put forward on various occasions. A viable way of putting international collaboration into practice is the implementation of online platforms for LSP research and teaching.

The gap between predominant English and minimized foci on other languages is also confronted, as in the literature. However, in some areas, such as lexicology/terminology and translation studies, this tension is less noticeable, as different studies analyze the equal status of various languages for specific purposes (e.g., in art, business, and medicine). At this lexical level, collocations, idiomatic constructions, and metaphorical language are important instruments of analysis. Multilingual scenarios are also often targeted in LSP course material development (e.g., online resources in different languages). Additionally, even though internationally, science is primarily communicated in English and corporate cultures operate under the ELF umbrella, various research incursions are made into LOTE by analyzing alternate modes of communication (e.g., academic publishing in open access outlets across disciplines, or working within multicultural groups in multinational companies).

Despite all these varied contributions of LSP research to multilingualism, the reality is that multilingual communities still constitute a minimized approach in LSP, as some scholars claim. For example, through online questionnaires, all present and past Ibérica journal editors stressed the demand for multilingual foci and methods [5, 7], due to the fact that specific tools for the study of linguistic/paralinguistic components (e.g., lexico-grammar, discourse, text, context) of communication in different languages, other than English, are limited within academic and professional settings. Instead, LSP research tends to situate English as the reference model for linguistic analyses, and by comparison, scholarly projection including analytical methods based on other languages is marginal. Another example is research about novel communicative situations taking place in social media, the web 2.0, and so on, which are still mostly conducted by targeting communication in English.

In the present study, the documentation about multilingualism in LSP has not been exhaustive because only these two publication outlets have been examined. Additionally, the focus has been placed on texts derived from keywords and collocations/phraseology. Other texts or parts where these linguistic elements do not occur may have been missed. However, because key linguistic occurrences were widely dispersed, representative notions and approaches have been contrasted across research sources, going from phraseology to texts. This procedure has enabled a constructive bottom-to-top perspective of the research by exploring common foci, notions, and approaches about the use of more than one language for specific purposes.

This analysis was conducted in two publications based in Spain. However, much LSP research, especially in Ibérica, has been done by international scholars worldwide. In this way, the scope of the analysis is international even if the research publications are based in Spain. It is thus a glocalized context, since there were several Spanish authors, as well as many from other countries. In order to delimit multilingual approaches within Spain only, other journals, conferences, and materials would have to be consulted, which is beyond the scope of this study. For example, AESLA (Spanish Association of Applied Linguistics) provides a yearly national event where the use of different languages is analyzed in all types of communicative situations and settings and with different methods (e.g., corpus linguistics, cross-cultural analysis, and so on). The present study could thus be extended to further investigate these events and resources.

Thanks

I wish to thank my colleague Guadalupe Aguado for her generous help with the review of the text classification and keyword information.

Supplementary information

Additional supporting information may be found in the supporting information tab for this chapter:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LtZrlW0R7NWqB6e9Grm3mNS1U6UvbWIG/view?usp=sharing

Acronyms

AELFE	European association of languages for specific purposes
AESLA	Spanish association of applied linguistics
AI	artificial intelligence
BAWE	British academic written English corpus
BELF	business English as a lingua franca
CLIL	content and language integrated learning
ELF	English as a lingua franca
EMI	English as a medium of instruction
ERPP	English for research publication purposes
ESP	English for specific purposes
L1	first language
L2	second language
LOTE	languages other than English
LSP	languages for specific purposes
OA	open access
OS	open science
PBL	problem-based learning
TBL	task-based learning