This article addresses a question central for this special issue of Multilingua on audiovisual translation (AVT) -- of the relationship between the cross-cultural and the intercultural in audiovisual translation. The question underpins fundamental debates in the emergent field of AVT as cross/intercultural mediation, the focus in this volume, with…

Dualist Hungary (1867-1918) was the linguistically most diverse would-be nation-state in the long nineteenth century, with less than half of its citizens speaking Hungarian as their home language and more than two-fifths being ignorant of it. The Nationalities Act of 1868 accommodated the language of court proceedings to that of the parties, but…

National emergency language competence (NELC) can be understood as the capacity to use language to cope with domestic and international public emergencies. NELC constitutes the foundation of and guidance for the provision of emergency language services. Based on a review of emergency language services and language competence development, this…

Tetun Dili, an Austronesian language spoken in East Timor, was until 1999 primarily an oral language of intercultural communication. Since the 1999 vote on independence from Indonesia, Tetun Dili has become the dominant language of public life, including the government, education and the media, as well as becoming an official language alongside…

This article serves as an introduction to a collection of four articles on multilingual practices in speech and writing, exploring both contemporary and historical sources. It not only introduces the articles but also discusses the scope and definitions of code-switching, attitudes towards multilingual interaction and, most pertinently, the…