La mediazione linguistico-culturale. Voci e istanze dall’accademia

The interpretation of epistemic models, axiological systems and socio-cultural scenarios, and the transposition of texts and concepts from one idiom to another, constitute the common hermeneutic challenges that lie behind the work of translators and interpreters in all geographical areas, and which the latest update of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume with New Descriptors (2018 (2020)) includes in the complex activity of ‘mediation’. The fervent debate on this new discipline involves, along with professionals, legislators, representatives of the productive sectors and the third sector, and finally the academic world, responsible for preparing properly trained staff to carry out the tasks of mediation. The fourteen essays in this volume present many of the issues that are of interest to those who deal with linguistic and cultural mediation in universities, setting them within the broader horizon of philological studies and the history of language, and within the panorama of current linguistic and glottodidactic investigations. The picture that emerges embraces Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages; the ‘voices and issues from the academia’ thus collected exemplify on the one hand the critical issues that arise during mediation activities, and on the other hand the difficulties of the mediator’s professional training. At the same time, the authors propose strategies and resources to overcome both obstacles, in the certainty that multilingual interaction is a fundamental value of modern societies, which today can and must be facilitated by adequately prepared professionals.