37.3036, Qs: Call for Participants: Multilingual Experiences of Access to Justice and AI-Mediated Institutional Communication

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3036. Tue Sep 22 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3036, Qs: Call for Participants: Multilingual Experiences of Access to Justice and AI-Mediated Institutional Communication

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Date: 22-Sep-2026
From: Ran Yi [ran.yi at unsw.edu.au]
Subject: Call for Participants: Multilingual Experiences of Access to Justice and AI-Mediated Institutional Communication


Participants wanted for an international study of multilingualism,
access to justice, and AI-mediated communication
How does communicating in more than one language affect a person’s
ability to understand, participate in, and challenge institutional
decisions? And what changes when that communication is mediated by AI?
We are recruiting multilingual adults for a research study examining
how polyglots perceive language access, access to justice, and the
growing use of AI-mediated communication in institutional settings.
The study is particularly interested in a distinction that may become
increasingly important as institutions adopt machine translation,
automated chat systems, summarisation tools, speech technologies, and
generative AI: being able to understand institutional information does
not necessarily mean being equally able to question it, correct it,
express oneself accurately, or contest a decision.
The online survey contains three sections:
Polyglot profile and institutional language use — 11 questions;
approximately 3 minutes.
Access-to-justice and institutional experience — 11 questions;
approximately 3 minutes.
AI-mediated institutional communication — 10 questions and 3 short
scenarios; approximately 4–5 minutes.
Total completion time: approximately 10–12 minutes. Optional written
comments may take slightly longer.
The survey combines demographic and multilingual-background questions,
Likert-scale responses, and short scenario-based questions.
Participants will also have opportunities to explain their responses
in their own words.
Who can participate?
We welcome participants who:
are 18 years of age or older;
use, or have meaningful experience with, two or more languages; and
are willing to reflect on communication with legal, administrative,
governmental, educational, healthcare, immigration, public-service, or
comparable institutional settings.
Prior use of AI in a legal setting is not required. The survey
includes scenarios that allow participants to evaluate AI-mediated
institutional communication even where their direct experience is
limited.
The study welcomes multilingual participants across languages,
countries, professions, and levels of formal language training. You do
not need to be a linguist, translator, or interpreter to participate.
Survey link: https://forms.gle/arHBQB4QXnZNSE52A
Participant information statement:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QJD7gZeKL5EwrSQcBhpwA2KtH8TjTy77/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=116584873626870043933&rtpof=true&sd=true
Participation is voluntary. Please refer to the participant
information provided with the survey for details concerning consent,
data handling, withdrawal, confidentiality/anonymity, and research
ethics.
About the research
The project examines multilingual users’ perceived linguistic agency
in AI-mediated institutional communication, with particular attention
to comprehension, participation, voice, correction, and
contestability.
It forms part of a broader programme of research on linguistic
justice, multilingual institutional communication, and fairness in
language technologies.
Thank you for considering participation. We would also be grateful if
you could share this call with multilingual individuals or relevant
networks who may be interested in contributing.

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Computational Linguistics
                     Pragmatics
                     Sociolinguistics




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