With this conference, we aim to contribute to the sharing and spreading of research on issues relating to linguistic dominance and inequality in an effort to better understand and counteract existing negative effects. In multilingual societies, different languages and different codes within languages are required in different contexts. Speakers who have no or limited command of the prevalent codes in various official or informal situations risk being excluded from participation, performing at a lower level or having more limited access than speakers who are more proficient in the required language(s) or codes.
Many societies today are increasingly multilingual and more knowledge about multilingual urban areas is needed to contribute to sustainable societal development, counteract exclusion and alienation, and encourage democratic engagement. Widening participation is necessary to make higher education institutions reflect the population at large and create quality in higher education through diversity, and issues of how linguistic dominance and inequality may affect access to and achievement in higher education are therefore highly relevant. In a globalized world, local languages are ‘competing’ with English in both academic and corporate contexts, and this situation can affect communicative quality and equality and may influence the future development of local languages.
We invite workshop presentations addressing linguistic dominance and inequalities in different arenas, and between different linguistic codes, focusing primarily on the following themes:
- Multilingual urban settings
- The role of language in widening participation to higher education
- Academic and professional language and the status of English
Please submit an abstract of no more than 400 words (word count not including references) by email to maria.wiktorsson@mah.se. Please include a title, authors, affiliations and contact email addresses. No conference fee is charged for participation.
Important dates
Deadline for abstract submissions: September 11th 2017
Outcome of decision process by: September 15th 2017
Abstracts will be reviewed by the organizing committee.
Registration opens: August 15th
Deadline for registration: October 30th
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