By Jocelyn Wright
How do we celebrate the life of one we love and respect? By remembering them, paying homage to them, and building off of their accomplishments!
On 5 July 2025, a dear and inspirational friend and educator, a pioneering peace linguist, a human rights advocate and activist, a nonkilling poet laureate, an extraordinary mind and heart, left us! But I know Francisco Gomes de Matos’s creative, humanizing spirit is watching over us. He will continue to be my muse; his legacy will continue to uplift, inspire, and guide people from his terra natal, Brazil, and around the world, even here in South Korea, to use, teach, and study language to compassionately transform lives.
Francisco was a faithful mailpal to me since the sunny day I first emailed him curious about the then unfamiliar-to-me area of peace linguistics, so closely associated with his name, and it was an honor for me to learn from and about him, studying his work and life in detail as I did and going on to publish a bio (https://www.hltmag.co.uk/dec2019/peace-linguistics). He was a hopeful visionary and prolific writer, addressing topics widely ranging from linguistics and sociolinguistics, creativity, constructive communication and positive pedagogy, human rights, dignity, nonkilling, etc. often before their time. More than that, through his kind and generous being and principled action, he was a bright light to many, as attested to by all family members, students, colleagues, and friends whom I’ve had the good fortune to be in touch with through social media and countless more.
When I pictured Francisco as I wrote this, images of his kind, smiling face and quick wit kept flashing before me telling me he would not want us to mourn his death but rather celebrate his life. A few years ago, I wrote a simple prompt poem about him for my students. Perhaps, the best thing I could leave is this:
A Peace Linguactivist!
Francisco Gomes de Matos
Pioneer peace linguist whose admirable path I seek to follow
Positive, creative, and dedicated
To inspiring humanizing transformation
Internationally online, in text, and through multimedia:
My peace muse!
For those who have not met Francisco or come across his work, please Google him online! You will find his eclectic, multilingual footprints: some more scholarly (for example, an article entitled ‘Harmonizing and humanizing political discourse: The contribution of peace linguists’ or a chapter entitled ‘Second language learners’ rights’), some more legal (e.g., the 1987 Declaration of Recife (on Linguistic Rights) published by Multilingua), some more pedagogical (‘Teaching vocabulary for peace education’ from a magazine or ‘Learning to communicate peacefully’ in an online encyclopedia), some simply playful (containing all kinds of “creactivities”), some more artistic (poems, “rhymed reflections,” and a large collection of posters), but often a mix! And you may come across various uniquely Franciscan sayings like “Communicating well means communicating for the well-being of humankind” (“Comunicar bem é comunicar para o bem”) or “May communicative peace be with you” commonly used to sign off works.
May eternal peace be with you, Francisco, and sustainable peace be with us as we follow paths like yours and build new ones!
The Author
Jocelyn Wright is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Mokpo National University, South Korea, where she has served for 17 years. Her main areas of academic interest are peace linguistics, peace literature, and peace language education. Email: jocelynmnu@yahoo.com
