Multilingualism as an attractive cultural experiment

Multilingualism is the most natural evolution which in recent years was made available to every press media through distinct mechanisms and forms of infrastructure, this rather than enduring as an unusual exception amongst those that limit themselves to monolingual concepts and pre-defined archaic designs. Certainly, it is only the environmental factors which may fail to present the opportunity to publish in another language other than English (or may we say; British English in our particular case). We are at heart, monolingual speakers, and eloquently paraphrasing an English teacher from some decades ago: “Given the appropriate environment, two languages are as normal as two lungs.”

“A theory purporting to account for universal language learnability cannot be considered adequate if it excludes the non-monolingual speakers of this world,” and in truth, multilingualism should not require the ability to either speak or write in two languages to be proficiently served as a vernacular, yet dialectal variety supported by the willingness to be multi-competent. Even today, in a literary world, encapsulated with a handful of isolated sources that opted to remain pure monolinguals, it is hard to find one that stands for its content uniqueness and the appeal to rediscover the cultural origins that somehow survived interconnected with what today’s society would still consider a “taboo.” Still, and at the same time, it is evident that multi-competence does not entirely require perfect fluency, as readers have proven to be versatile and flexible, open-minded and thankful to read articles written in their native language. There is, however, an effort on our part to set a boundary and be consistent in a manner that would seem as a caprice for many.

According to those specialised in linguistics, the theory of intercultural competence is not advisable, as the writers may lose their original perspectives. Nevertheless, the advantages that multilinguals exhibit over monolinguals is not restricted to linguistic knowledge only, but extend outside the area of language, and the substantial long-lived cognitive, social, personal, academic, and professional benefits being bilingual can have. This has been taken into thoughtful consideration for our content by naturally embracing Spanish (from Spain) as our second language, which may aid to offset our content through a broad audience without the common linguistic barriers.

Over the months, we have closely attained a keener awareness and a sharper perception of our the geographic location of our audience and their native language, which allowed us to enhance our meta-lingual abilities as well as formulating better judgement on how beneficial it would be for us to implement multilingualism into our digital platform, whether in its practical utility or technical skill, yet maintaining a positive correlation between publishings and improved reading scores, without sacrificing numerous features we carefully established prior to multilingual implementation. Regardless of race, gender, or academic level, we dare say that our experiment has been successful and that we have gradually become efficient communicators while branching out our topics of discussion, such as proven through our latest category; Health, which we introduced with the rare genetic disorder ‘Porphyria: The Unusual Vampiric Blood Disorder,’ closely followed by the disturbing ‘The Examination Of The Psyche Behind Serial Killers,’ for more mature readers, two articles that emphasise our will to expand horizons and — being simultaneously insiders and outsiders — even if gloomy, eerie and somehow, disorderly insane, may reflect the orientation of our future publishings.

We attest that the interaction with our Spanish audience has been somewhat fragmented throughout the years, mainly because our primary objective was to reach a more international audience, other than providing a forum of discussion for Spanish readers to see their own culture from a new perspective not available to monoglots, enabling the comparison, contrast, and understanding of various cultural concepts. Thankfully, in an age of global interdependence and increasingly multicultural and multiethnic societies, we have decided not only to contribute with a publication freely open to multilingualism but as well as to celebrate diversity.

Whether we like it or not, the world of tomorrow will remain multilingual. Educating people to be multilingual is not only offering a reflection of the various sociolinguistic and sociocultural realities, it is also a means of defending this diversity, culturally speaking.