Study day “Languages in co-ownership", 11.3.2020 Helsinki

This study day on March 11 2020 discusses multilingualism from the perspective of sharing and co-owning languages, also exploring the barriers preventing the sharing of languages. Such a perspective includes:

• Languages: standards, attitudes to registers and accents, validation and valorisation of particular varieties, regulated and less regulated spaces, language and racism…
• Speakers: licensed and ‘illegitimate’ speakers, linguistic closure vs. openness to new speakers…
• History: colonial languages in postcolonial societies, metropolitan and appropriated forms of colonial languages, teaching of colonial languages, attitudes to indigenous languages, language and nationalism, decolonial visions of language-sharing
• Mobility: Multilingualism management in contexts of migration: support for repertoires, Finnish as a second language, multilingualism vs. bilingualism in English +…
• Sustainability: strategies and visions for viable and sustainable multilingual ecologies, at schools, in universities and beyond, plain language (selkokieli)…

The study day is for everybody with an interest in learning, teaching, and sharing languages – language teachers, language support workers, students, researchers, language planners, and of course language learners and everybody with an interest in languages and education. The event combines presentations by teachers and researchers of the University of Helsinki and the Université Aix-Marseille on aspects of language learning and sharing in multilingual societies with a round-table discussion exploring the importance of nurturing cultural and linguistic diversity and hands-on workshop sessions in which participants can try out innovative language learning methods and explore language ideologies in practice. The learning situations covered include Finnish, Somali, Russian, English, French, Wolof, German, Swahili, Hindi, Urdu, Swedish, and Hebrew.

This event is jointly organized by the University of Helsinki, the Institut Français de Finlande and the Goethe Institut Finnland. Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required.

Lisätietoja, ilmoittautuminen ja koko ohjelma / More information, registration and the whole programme: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/african-studies/2020/02/13/languages-in-co-ownership/