Linguapax
Languages of the Wider World’: Understanding Resilience and Shift
This is the second international conference organised jointly by the MERCATOR European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning of the Fryske Akademy www.fryske-akademy.nl (The Netherlands) and the SOAS-UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning ‘Languages of the Wider World' (LWW CETL, UK). The conference will take place in the charming city of Leeuwarden, the capital of the bilingual province Fryslân (Netherlands). The venue is the ‘Aljemint', conference centre of the Fryske Akademy.
All people have the right to learn and use their mother-tongue, and to learn a second and third language. This formal right is often absent and its use in practice is often less well guaranteed and less developed than should be the case, especially for speakers of smaller or lesser used languages variously labelled as ‘regional', ‘minority', ‘immigrant', ‘community' (including sign languages), ‘heritage' languages, etc. The conference will focus on theoretical and empirical work in research, teaching and learning of such languages worldwide.
The conference will combine the fields of interest of the partner institutions. The focus of MERCATOR and the Fryske Akademy is on language learning and transmission of Regional and Minority Languages and smaller state languages in Europe. The SOAS-UCL LWW CETL focuses on languages of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and The Netherlands - referred to as ‘languages of the wider world'. This conference will bring together researchers and practitioners from these various fields to define, analyse and explore new directions and paradigms in understanding resilience and shift of regional and minority languages. We warmly invite not only researchers and students, but also policy makers, practitioners and interested others to the conference that aims to provide opportunities for discussion, further research and future collaborations.
For more information, please see the conference website: http://www.soas.ac.uk/lwwcetl/events/conferences/07apr2011-languages-of-the-wider-world-understanding-resilience-and-shift.html