Minority Languages in Europe: Successes and Challenges

The ‘Minority Languages in Europe’ conference will explore aspects of European minority languages and related cultural issues.

Email: eurlangs@indiana.edu
Website: http://www.indiana.edu/~eurlangs

Invited Speakers: José Ignacio Hualde, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Bernat Joan i Mari, Secretari de Política Lingüística de la
Generalitat de Catalunya; Claude Truchot, Université de Strasbourg; Jean-Luc Vigneux, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ch’Lanchron, author, singer,composer, translator; Colin Williams, Cardiff University

Call for Papers
Abstracts are invited for 20-minute talks (plus 10 minutes for discussion) on any aspect of European minority languages and related cultural issues, including but not limited to:
– Sociolinguistics
– Geopolitical issues
– Cultural vitality
– Language endangerment & revitalization
– Linguistic issues: descriptive & theoretical
– Orthography/literacy
– Education
– Fieldwork/research issues
– Language & identity
– Media & technology

Authors are asked to submit their abstracts online using our online submission page:
http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/eurlangs_2010

Call Deadline: 15-Mar-2010


Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies

Fechas: 06-Oct-2010 – 08-Oct-2010
Lugar: Hamburg, Germany
Email: sfb538@uni-hamburg.de
Web Site: http://www.mims.uni-hamburg.de/

The Collaborative Research Centre on Multilingualism at the University of Hamburg will be hosting an International Conference on «Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies», which will be held from October 6 – 8, 2010.

The conference will focus on the following topics:
– multilingual acquisition
– multilingual communities and multilingual communication
– linguistic variation
– language contact
– language attrition
– linguistic minorities
– educational challenges in multilingual societies
– multilingual language corpora

We invite proposals for: colloquia/workshops, individual papers, and posters on the topics listed above. Abstracts should be submitted in electronic form. The deadline for abstract submission is February 15, 2010. All abstracts will be peer reviewed.

Information concerning the required structure of the abstracts and proposals as well as the relevant submission procedure can be found on the conference website (http://www.mims.uni-hamburg.de/submission.html).

A selection of papers will be published in the conference volume «Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies» in the Series Hamburg Studies on Multilingualism (John Benjamins, Amsterdam).

Invited Speakers:
– Ingrid Gogolin (University of Hamburg)
– Jürgen M. Meisel (Universities of Hamburg & Calgary)
– Peter Svenonius (University of Tromsoe)
– Donald Winford (Ohio State University)

Submissions will be accepted from December 1, 2009 until February 15, 2010.

Vitality of a Minority Language

Full Title: Vitality of a Minority Language

Date: 15-Oct-2010 – 16-Oct-2010
Location: Bellinzona, Switzerland
Contact Person: Elena Maria Pandolfi Matteo Casoni
Meeting Email: decs-olsi@ti.ch
Web Site: http://www.ti.ch/olsi

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Call Deadline: 31-Jan-2010

Meeting Description:

The congress aims at an in depth discussion of the parameters relevant to the evaluation of the degree of vitality of a minority language. Particular attention will be given to quantitative and qualitative indices that may be used for monitoring the ‘health condition’ of languages with a minority position in a country. The situation of the Italian language in Switzerland will be a special focus of interest.

The congress themes are:

A) Indices of a minority language vitality

(i) The concept of vitality index and its relevance for minority languages
(ii) Internal linguistic vitality
(iii) External sociolinguistic vitality
(iv) Methodology for quantitative measurements
(v) Methodology for qualitative measurements

B) Goals and aims of the researches on language vitality

(i) Sociolinguistic situation of a community and language vitality researches
(ii) Implications, effects and hints of the language vitality researches for a minority language protection and promotion

Call for Papers:

The congress program contemplates 8 invited presentations (40 minutes each) and a workshop with 8 papers selected through this Call for Papers.

Papers on general aspects concerning the Congress themes will be welcome but main attention should be devoted to the situation of Italian language in Swiss Confederation and to similar European comparable situations.

Abstracts:

Researchers working on these topics are invited to send an abstract of about 500 words of their proposed paper. The abstracts should contain the paper title, the name of the author /authors, the postal and e-mail addresses, the thematic area and have to be sent to the e-mail address decs-olsi@ti.ch. Abstracts received will be reviewed and selected by the Scientific Committee.

Deadline to submit abstracts: 31st January 2010.

Deadline of notifications of acceptance/rejection: 30th March 2010

A small contribution to the expenses may be assigned to PhD students presenting an accepted paper or at least taking part to the congress. Interested PhD students are invited to send the application within 31st January 2010, along with the title of their PhD thesis and a presentation letter by their PhD professor.

Congress Languages: Italian, German, French and English

<small>Fuente: Infoling</small>

Festival of Languages

Festival of Languages

Date: 17-Sep-2009 – 07-Oct-2009
Location: Bremen, Germany
Contact: Thomas Stolz
Contact Email: stolz@uni-bremen.de
Meeting URL: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/festival/default.aspx

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics; Sociolinguistics

Meeting Description:

The Festival of Languages will take place in September/October 2009 in Bremen,nGermany. It is meant to familiarise the general public with the idea of the linguistic diversity of our world as a positive value of humankind that needs to be preserved.

(Fuente: The Linguist List)

LINEE, New Challenges for Multilingualism in Europe

Fechas: 11-Apr-2010 – 15-Apr-2010
Lugar: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Página web: http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference

The conference is intended to bring together academics representing a range of disciplines in humanities and social sciences, practitioners and EU/national policy makers, concerned with multilingualism and linguistic diversity in Europe. Proposals are invited for original and previously unpublished research papers that broadly fall within the following themes and topics:

A. Language, Culture and Identity:
Within the context of ongoing glocalisation, the emergence of multiple identities compels to redefine the role of languages and lingua francas as
identity markers, and as factors contributing to the distinctiveness of culture-specific environments. The overall objective of this thematic block is to clarify the saliency of language as an identity marker in the EU. This points to the role of language in identity formation processes, the existence of language-based multiple identities, and the significance of language as part of well-being of their speakers, and primary symbol of possible secondary cultural, economical, political and other non-linguistic motives.

B. Language Policy and Planning:
This thematic bloc is addressed to researchers interested not only on the institutional, intrinsic and professional process-oriented dimension, but also to those concerned with an often unnoticed, implicit or unintended language policy and language planning processes. A consensus on the demarcation between such concepts as «language policy», «language planning» and related concepts («aménagement linguistique», «language politics») will be discussed. The issues to examine concern the adequacy of the existing language policy and language planning efforts in the EU countries, identifying possible discrepancies between theory and practice.

C. Multilingualism and Education:
The main issue to be tackled concerns the challenge of becoming not only multilingual, but multicompetent in a multilingual environment and the ways of developing the capacity to behave in a flexible and adequate manner in concrete multilingual contexts. The two main fields in which these questions can be answered, are in general a) Second Language Acquisition, including all forms of  language acquisition apart from first language acquisition, from contact languages present in the territory to school learning of truly foreign languages) and b) bilingual Education (including concurrent learning of several  languages).

D. Language and Economy:
This topic is focused on the interplay between and economy and their impact on the building of a knowledge-based society. The focus will be on the relationship between language, geographical mobility and New Economy growth patterns. If we conceive of the economic order as a determining force in society, and if we take into account that economy cannot do without language, then it follows that economy has profound implications for language (its use and status, the emergence of lingua francas) in society. This is all the more true as economy itself has shifted from industrial age to a knowledge economy.

The abstract submission deadline for individual papers is October 1, 2009. Further details regarding abstract submission and registration are available on the conference website: http://www.amiando.com/lineeconference

(Fuente: The Linguist List)

conferencia “Lenguas románicas – Traducción – Multilingüismo – Construcción europea”

Para hablar del futuro común de las lenguas románicas en la Unión Europea y en el mundo, la Dirección General de Traducción de la Comisión Europea y la Representación en España de esta Institución organizan del 12 al 13 de marzo en Santiago de Compostela la conferencia “Lenguas románicas – Traducción – Multilingüismo – Construcción europea”.Especialistas españoles y portugueses, franceses, italianos y rumanos debatirán del papel que desempeñan las lenguas románicas en la construcción europea, de su valor económico y de la ayuda que pueden dar las nuevas tecnologías de la lengua en su desarrollo.
En un mundo cada vez más diverso, no basta con saber inglés, ni tan siquiera chino: hay que hablar la lengua del vecino, la lengua del cliente. Hay que aprender a aprender idiomas. Hay que aprender a explotar sus conocimientos gramaticales y léxicas para comunicar con hablantes de idiomas de la misma familia.
Todas las lenguas románicas comparten una problemática lo suficientemente parecida como para poder obtener un beneficio de la colaboración entre ellas: aprendamos a aprovecharla.

Cartel, programa y boletín de inscripción: http://ec.europa.eu/spain/novedades/agenda/act_rep_120309_es.htm

(Fuente: Comisión Europea)

Coloquio «La Europa de los veintisiete y sus lenguas»

Coloquio internacional LA EUROPA DE LOS VEINTISIETE Y SUS LENGUAS
París (Francia), 10-12 de diciembre de 2009
Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7
UFR Études Interculturelles de Langues Appliquées
CLILLAC-ARP
http://www.eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr/recherche/conf/ciel/e27l/es/index

Lenguas de trabajo: francés, español, inglés y alemán

Ejes temáticos (descritos con más detalle en http://www.eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr/recherche/conf/ciel/e27l/index):
1. Situaciones lingüísticas en los países de la Unión Europea
2. La Unión Europea y su política lingüística
3. La oficialización de nuevas lenguas en el seno de la Unión; las lenguas regionales o minoritarias en el seno de la Unión Europea

Fechas
– Inscripción provisional y resúmenes: antes del 30 de abril de 2009
– Notificación de aceptación: 30 de mayo de 2009
– Segunda circular: a principios de junio de 2009
– Pago de la matrícula: antes del 30 de septiembre de 2009

Se ruega a los participantes mandar antes del 30 de abril de 2009 los formularios de preinscripción y sus propuestas de comunicación por correo electrónico a José Carlos Herreras: <jch+colloque@eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr>.

Según la lengua de comunicación, se ruega enviar también los mismos documentos a:
– Francés: Elodie Weber, <el.web@free.fr>
– Español: Elizabeth Navarro, <Elisabeth.Navarro@eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr>
– Inglés: Jean Michel Benayoun, <jmb@eila.paris-diderot.fr>
– Alemán: Lucrèce Freiss, <lfreiss@eila.univ-paris-diderot.fr>

(Fuente: Infoling)