[EDLING:806] CFP: Multilingualism and Exclusion

[Francis M Hult]

Whether the winds of globalisation, glocalisation and regionalisation of the last decades
have led to more linguistic diversity or not is a matter of on-going dispute, one reason
being the changeable, language-ideological ways in which language practice is categorised
and essentialised into countable linguistic units. In contrast, it is less controversial
that they have led to an increased visibility and awareness of linguistic diversity, to a
growing sensitivity and sensibility towards it, i.e. to a growing amount and a wider range
of meaning-ascribing discourses surrounding multilingualism.

The Symposium on Multilingualism and Exclusion wants to draw attention to the fact that
such discourses do not invariably reflect on or give rise to realities of societal
integration and emancipation, but often follow and are followed by mechanisms and effects
of exclusion at different levels of society. Discourses on language diversity construct
this language diversity: they create, reproduce, naturalise, freeze, or legally enact
perceived differences and similarities across and within languages. It is these
constructive mechanisms, and what societies and political powers do with multilingualism
in general, that impinge directly on the ways citizens can have access to information, can
participate in the distribution of socio-economic resources, can be involved in or
affected by governance and legislation, and can choose their position in a community,
their citizenship and cultural belonging.

Call for papers

The organisers welcome papers offering original theoretical, methodological or empirical
studies of the issue of multilingualism and exclusion. Although the penchant is for
societal approaches, contributions discussing the issue of exclusion from the viewpoint of
individual bi- or multilingualism (e.g. in the field of psycholinguistics) will offer a
welcome balance. The symposium is organized as part of a research programme that runs in
collaboration between Belgian and South African teams (i.e., the MIDP-III cooperation
project), but the areal scope of the contributions should not be limited to any of these
two regions.

The organising committee

Pol Cuvelier (University of Antwerp)
Theo du Plessis (Free State University, Bloemfontein, South Africa)
Pieter Duvenage (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
Bénédicte Kusendila (University of Antwerp)
Michael Meeuwis (Ghent University)
Lut Teck (Institute for Higher Education and the Arts, Brussels)
Reinhild Vandekerckhove (University of Antwerp)

For further information

Ms. Nikiwe Matebula or Ms. Susan Lombaard
Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment
University of the   Free State
P.O. Box Bloemfontein  9300
Republic of South Africa
Telephone number: +2751 4012405
Fax number: +2751 4483976
matebulanp.hum at mail.uovs.ac.za
lombasc.hum at mail.uovs.ac.za
http://www.etfb.org.za