Research in Focus is a YFile series that explores the vibrant research landscape of York University’s Organized Research Units (ORUs).
These centers of research excellence serve as dynamic hubs where interdisciplinary experts collaborate with partners to tackle some of the globe’s most pressing challenges. Each edition invites readers to explore the transformative work undertaken at York University through a Q-and-A with ORU directors.
This edition explores the mission and impacts of the Centre for Research on Language and Culture Contact (CRLCC), and features Aurelia Klimkiewicz, a member of the centre and a professor in the Department of Global Communication and Cultures at Glendon College.
Q: What is the mission of your ORU and its core areas of research?
A: The CRLCC is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary and multilingual research on the many forms of contact between languages, cultures and, increasingly, knowledges. This focus brings forward key epistemological questions related to the transfer and transformation of knowledge across languages and cultural frameworks.
Language contact is understood as a complex, multifaceted phenomenon involving individuals and communities negotiating meaning across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The CRLCC approaches these dynamics through a wide range of disciplinary perspectives including linguistics, translation studies, sociolinguistics, anthropology, diaspora studies, migration studies, history, political science and more.
Core research areas include multilingualism and second-language learning; Indigenous, minority languages; translation, interpreting and transcultural communication; language policy, language justice and equitable language access. The centre also investigates migration and diasporic linguistic and cultural transmission across time, space and generations, as well as issues related to epistemic diversity and decolonization.
Q: How does your ORU foster collaboration and partnerships to enhance research impact?
A: The CRLCC fosters a dynamic research culture by promoting event-based collaboration by co-organizing conferences, lectures, workshops, summer schools and seminars with both internal and external participants and partners. It also supports graduate and undergraduate research mentorship, integrating students into collaborative research teams and knowledge mobilization initiatives.
The CRLCC actively welcomes visiting scholars, community researchers and artists. In addition, it maintains strategic partnerships with other Organized Research Units, cultural organizations, community groups and institutions working on language education and policy.
Q: What real-world challenges is your ORU working to address and how does it align with York’s institutional priorities?
A: The CRLCC responds to real-world challenges rooted in linguistic inequality, epistemic exclusion, cultural displacement and the marginalization of non-dominant languages and knowledge systems. These issues are often experienced most acutely by bilingual and multilingual individuals, who must continually navigate linguistic uncertainty, negotiate meaning across cultural frameworks and adapt to shifting language norms and expectations.
A clear example of these dynamics emerged during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many immigrant communities in Canada faced serious barriers to accessing reliable health information in their own languages.
This situation, though not addressed at the time by the CRLCC, has since reinforced the urgency and relevance of the centre's mission in a multilingual society where access to language is deeply tied to access to rights, health and full participation in public life. It also serves as a reminder that language justice and equitable information access remain overlooked, yet are critical dimensions of social inclusion and public policy.
The CRLCC actively promotes access by supporting research on Indigenous and minoritized languages, equitable language access and multilingual education. It creates inclusive research spaces for scholars and students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
Finally, the CRLCC’s focus on impact is evident in its engagement with questions of linguistic justice, cultural asymmetries and inclusive knowledge production – research that informs public debate, educational practice and decision-makers, and advances York’s commitment to socially engaged scholarship.
Q: What innovative approaches or methodologies distinguish your ORU’s research?
A: The CRLCC’s research is marked by innovation in developing new methodologies and frameworks for understanding language contact, translation and cultural negotiation in complex sociopolitical contexts. The centre fosters cross-sectoral collaborations that connect academia with policy, education and the arts, and engages decolonial frameworks that interrogate the relationships between language, power and knowledge systems.
Its members adopt: metadisciplinary approaches that examine how disciplinary boundaries are crossed, translated or reshaped; participatory and community-based methods that engage marginalized and multilingual communities; and creative and experimental activities such as multilingual performances, translation workshops and other cultural events.
In addition, the CRLCC cultivates close relationships with external partners, both in the community sector and in the language industry. These partnerships ensure that the centre remains informed about current social and professional issues.
Q: What accomplishments or upcoming projects can you highlight and how do you see your ORU shaping the future?
A: In May 2025, the centre hosted the bilingual international conference Contact and Engagement: Languages, Cultures, Knowledges, which brought together scholars, translators, artists and language professionals from around the world. The event was part of the CRLCC Spring Research Week, organized to mark the centre’s approaching 20th anniversary. It included the research seminar Archives, Language, and Translation, and the 14th Glendon Graduate Conference in Translation Studies. These events strengthened the centre’s international profile and demonstrated its role as a hub for collaborative, hands-on and interdisciplinary scholarship.
Under the leadership of a new director, Shanna Lino, beginning in July 2025, the CRLCC will also reinvigorate existing and add new research clusters, including those in disability studies, environmental humanities and ecolinguistics, artificial intelligence (AI), and border studies. Colleagues from York and beyond have already expressed interest in leading these clusters and co-developing future initiatives. In addition, three new research groups are currently being proposed, reflecting the centre’s intellectual vitality and responsiveness to emerging questions in the field.
Overall, through its commitment to critical inquiry and multilingual engagement, the CRLCC is shaping the future of socially engaged, inclusive and polycentric research at York and beyond.
Learn more about Research & Innovation at York University.