Ordinariness + Innovation

Innovation in language practice is increasingly celebrated, at times even romanticised – however this inadvertently invents the linguistic Other through exoticising the ordinary epistemologies of language. Conversely, through a contemplating of what ordinariness entails or how it is imposed, the complex natures of communities, patterns, and hierarchies are often interrogated. Continued explorations of ordinariness and innovation across ecologies, landscapes, platforms, modalities, pedagogies, disability and neurodiverse cultures are required to further critical assessments for theory and application. Considerations of languages on the periphery – indigenous and migrant, minority and endangered – including engagement with everyday policy and practice, and development of innovative technologies, are particularly timely, in light of the UN’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032).