MIDP Symposium on Multilingualism and Exclusion

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Call for papers

MIDP Symposium on Multilingualism and Exclusion
24-26 April 2006, Free State University, Bloemfontein, South Africa

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.

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.
One-page abstract proposals, mentioning full physical and electronic
address details of all authors as well as an identification of one contact
author, are awaited before 1 September 2005. Notification of acceptance
will be given, if all goes as planned, before 1 December 2005. Papers will
not only be selected on the basis of their internal quality but also with
an eye for overall thematical variety. A selection of the papers will be
published as a special issue of the accredited South African journal Acta
Academica. (The possibility of publishing all the proceedings prior to
that is presently being examined).

Abstracts are to be sent to (hard copy, fax or e-mail attachment):

Ms. Nikiwe Matebula or Ms. Susan Lombaard
Unit for Language Facilitation and Empowerment
University of the Free State
P.O. Box 339
Bloemfontein 9300
Republic of South Africa
Telephone number: +2751 4012405
Fax number: +2751 4483976
e-mail: matebulanp.hum at mail.uovs.ac.za or lombasc.hum at mail.uovs.ac.za


Please also regularly consult the symposium's website at
http://www.etfb.org.za [Symposium Multilingualism and Exclusion] for
continuous information on the programme, the keynote speakers,
accommodation, and others.

The organising committee (in alphabetical order) is composed of:

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