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--></style></head><body lang=en-GR link="#467886" vlink="#96607D" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>Dear colleagues,<span class=apple-converted-space> with apologies for cross-posting, I’d like to inform you </span>that already more than 900 colleagues in universities across Europe but also other parts of the world have signed the “ECSPM<span class=apple-converted-space> </span></span><span style='color:#212121'>Declaration for Multilingualism in Higher Education” which you can find <a href="https://ecspm.org/declaration-for-multilingualism-in-higher-education/" title="https://ecspm.org/declaration-for-multilingualism-in-higher-education/"><span style='color:#0078D7'>here</span></a><b> </b>in many languages. </span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>W</span><span style='color:#212121'>e </span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>are now hoping that those of you who have not yet had an opportunity to </span><span style='color:#212121'>read and to sign it</span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>, to do so</span><span class=apple-converted-space><span style='color:#212121'> </span></span><span style='color:#212121'><a href="https://chng.it/2M82m7yXYs" title="https://chng.it/2M82m7yXYs"><b><span style='color:#0078D7'>on-line</span></b></a>, given that we have uploaded it as a petition. Perhaps you may also want to seek the support of other colleagues at your institution and or in your network.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>The global dominance of English in technology and science has reduced the perceived need of young people to study other languages and cultures, particularly in countries where English is the so-called ‘native’ language, forgetting that about 68 million out of the total US population speak a language other than English at home, that 4.2 million of the residents in the UK have a main language other than English, and that 75</span><span lang=EN-US style='color:#212121'>% of the people in the world<span class=apple-converted-space> </span></span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>speak no English at all. This means lack of communication which would allow some form of intercultural understanding and that the ‘big’ and ‘small’ European languages which have served as the backbone of the intellectual production in the USA are not being learnt.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span></span><span style='color:#212121'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>Missed opportunities for learning other important languages of the world and delving into other cultures constitute missed prospects for different ways of constructing knowledge. A monolingual academic culture and homogenising approach to knowledge results in significant mental impoverishment (cf. Grin 2014), while homogenising concepts and categories prevent multiple perspectives, other epistemic possibilities (cf. Bhargava 2013). Homogenisation of knowledge results in epistemic injustice, as one form of knowledge becomes the norm, marginalising all other forms (cf. Monceri 2014). What Li (2016) has identified as academic hegemony, involves, epistemic expropriation, according to Halvorsen (2018); that is, procuring ideas from one epistemic community and valorising them in another (resulting in decontextualized knowledge). Epistemic domination, other forms of knowledge systems are overpowered, resulting in epistemicide (de Sousa Santos 2015, Hall & Tandon 2017). Epistemic domination causes epistemic oppression (Okpanachi 2012), which is a form of epistemological racism (Kubota 2019), occasioning epistemic violence (Spivak (1994).<span class=apple-converted-space> </span></span><span style='color:#212121'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>In increasingly eliminating linguistic and discoursal diversity in universities, different forms of exclusion surface: that of the students’ linguistic repertoire impeding their plurilingualism, which allows meaning-making on the basis of all semiotic resources available to them. Plurilingualism embraces speakers’ multilingual identities and, as in translanguaging, resists socio-political boundaries associated with named languages (cf. Garcia & Wei, 2014; Otheguy, Garcia & Reid, 2015)</span><span style='color:#212121'>.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span></span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>One can speak of ‘pluriknowledging’ or ‘transknowledging’ (as does Heugh 2017, 2019). Pluriknowledging or transknowledging both involve the embracing of students’ and researchers’ multi-epistemic identity rather than being constrained by the socio-political boundaries associated with dominating epistemological discourse.</span><span style='color:#212121'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span style='color:#212121'>Global HE finds itself at a crossroads unimaginable at the turn of the century when the world basked in the possibilities of globalisation, democratisation and multilateralism.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span style='color:#212121'>Society is currently reeling from the multiple crises of climate change and loss of biodiversity, deepening inequalities, glaring developmental deficits, alarming democratic recessions, intolerant populisms, rising competitive imperialisms and persistent armed conflicts.<span class=apple-converted-space> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span style='color:#212121'>The ECSPM is trying to do something about building respect for linguistic, cultural and epistemic diversity in Europe. During the third week of May we have scheduled a series of meetings with European Commission officials so as to negotiate that multilingualism in teaching and learning, research and publishing, governance and communication in higher education be legitimated through explicit institutional language policies. Please join us!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'>With all good</span><span style='color:#212121'> wishes <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: auto;text-align:start;widows: auto;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;word-spacing:0px'><span style='color:#212121'>Bessie</span><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Bessie Dendrinos, Professor Emeritus NKUA, | </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#2E75B6;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><a href="http://scholar.uoa.gr/vdendrin" title="http://scholar.uoa.gr/vdendrin"><span style='color:#2E75B6'>http:/</span><span style='color:#2E75B6;text-decoration:none'> </span><span style='color:#2E75B6'>/scholar.uoa.gr/vdendrin</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#2F5597;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'> </span><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>| <a href="tel:+306944905954"><span style='color:#0078D7'>+30 6944 905954</span></a> | ECSPM </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>President </span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#2E75B6;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><a href="http://ecspm.org" title="http://ecspm.org"><span style='color:#2E75B6'>http://ecspm.org</span></a></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><img border=0 width=92 height=47 style='width:9583in;height:.4895in' id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.png@01DAA395.5D46DA30" alt="signature_3531600660"></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#212121;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='color:#212121'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>