Despite over 30 years since the groundbreaking 1987 LinguaPax Conference on "Teaching foreign languages for peace and understanding," the inclusion of 'Peace Linguistics' (PL) in Crystal's (1999) dictionary, and, more recently, months of war between Russia and Ukraine, peace still does not figure among the keywords in the AILA open call subthemes. Yet applied linguistics (AL) should be more than marginally interested in this very real world challenge. The theme of AILA 2023 is 'Diversity and social cohesion in a globalized world: Towards more committed language sciences', and AL has areas that focus more on one or the other. A branch of AL that brings both dimensions together, through both description and application, is PL, recently defined as "an interdisciplinary field guided by the goal of promoting peace and peacebuilding through systematic study, deliberate teaching/learning, and conscious use of languages spoken, written, and signed" (Wright, 2021). Despite the notable efforts of pioneers such as Gomes de Matos and Friedrich and some peaceworking applied linguists who did not use the term explicitly in early years but were intentionally committed to peace, until now, not enough has been written or said about this emerging field at "the intersection of peace, language, communication and power" (Friedrich, 2009, p. 23). As PL remains somewhat invisible and little developed, it is not yet contributing to AL to its full potential. However, applied linguists can be agents of and for peace (Friedrich, 2007; Gomes de Matos, 2018). Indeed, numerous scholars have argued that they should be! There are multiple ways that the field can contribute to a better world and more relevant sciences, and the goal of this presentation focused on peace language education is to discuss the special commitment of peace linguists and directions for peace linguistic research and action based on a selection of recent studies specifically at the levels of curriculum, programs, and courses. In Gomes de Matos's (2006) view, "An emphasis on peaceful communication … would reflect the assumption of the need for transformative communicative change leading to the preparation of citizens as peaceful users of languages" (p. 170). There is no time like the present to integrate peace into language education.
References
Crystal. D. (1999). A dictionary of language (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Friedrich, P. (2007). Language, negotiation, and peace: The use of English in conflict resolution. London: Continuum.
Friedrich, P. (2009). Peace studies and peace linguistics now: What has language got to do with it? Peace Forum, 24(34), 23-27.
Gomes de Matos, F. (2006). Language, peace, and conflict resolution. In M. Deutsch, P. T. Coleman, & E. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice (2nd Ed.), (pp. 158-174). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gomes de Matos, F. (2018). Planning uses of peace linguistics in second language education. In C. Chua Siew Kheng (Ed.), Un(intended) language planning in a globalising world: Multiple levels of players at work (pp. 290-300). Warsaw: De Gruyter.
Wright, J. (2021). ELT concept #12: Communicative peace and (applied) peace linguistics. Willy's ELT Corner.
