Are we all in this together?

This introductory chapter makes the case for languages-based, translational research to be part of the partnerships and collaborations required to make sense of, and respond to, COVID-19 as one of the major global challenges of our time. It demonstrates that the pandemic is inextricably associated with questions of language and communication, linguacultural identification and state citizenship, access and inclusion, agency and responsibility, power and trust, and many other interlocking dimensions encoded linguistically and manifested behaviourally. It argues that if we are truly “all in this together”—to reprise one of the linguistic hallmarks of the pandemic—then linguistic sensitivity and translational awareness must inform collective action that is marked by competence, inclusivity and responsibility. The chapter outlines our conceptual understanding of translation (as meaningful, reliable, sensitive, multilingual and multilateral) and its application to the pandemic in the three sections of the book. It also argues that sensitivity to language, and paying attention to the transmission and circulation of ideas, ideologies, values, narratives and history through processes of translation, results in a broadening of social, cultural and medical understandings of COVID-19.