Symposia,+conferences+and+workshops

**2013 Annual Lecture**
Language and Society Centre (LASC) This presentation attempts to define interculturality in a socio-cognitive framework and relate it to current pragmatics research. Intercultural Pragmatics is a relatively new field of inquiry that is about how the language system is put to use in social encounters between human beings who have different first languages, communicate in a common language, and, usually, represent different cultures (Kecskes 2004; Kecskes 2010). The communicative process in these encounters is synergistic in the sense that it is a merger in which pragmatic norms of each participant are represented to some extent together with the emergent, co-constructed elements. Interculturality is a phenomenon that is not only interactionally and socially constructed in the course of communication but also relies on relatively definable cultural models and norms that represent the speech communities to which the interlocutors belong. Consequently, interculturality can be considered an interim rule system that has both relatively normative and emergent components. Intercultural pragmatics represents a socio-cognitive perspective in which individual prior experience and actual situational experience are equally important in meaning construction and comprehension. Research in intercultural pragmatics has four main foci: 1) interaction between native speakers and non-native speakers of a language, 2) lingua franca communication in which none of the interlocutors has the same L1, 3) multilingual discourse, and 4) language use and development of individuals who speak more than one language. Professor Kecskes is the founding editor of the linguistics journal //Intercultural Pragmatics// and the Mouton Series in Pragmatics published by Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin/New York, as well as the new bilingual (Chinese-English) journal CASLAR (//Chinese as a Second Language Research//) and the //“Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict//” published by John Benjamins: Amsterdam/Philadelphia. He sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Pragmatics (Elsevier) Pragmatics & Society (Benjamins), International Journal of Multilingualism (Taylor & Francis), Lodz Papers in Pragmatics (De Gruyter), International Journal of Language and Culture (Benjamins) and the Journal of Foreign Languages (Waiguoyu) published in China. Prof. Kecskes is also on the editorial board of four book series: Pragmatics, Philosophy and Psychology (Springer), Series in Pragmatics (Cambridge Scholarly Publishing), Pragmatic Interfaces (Equinox), and Studies in General Linguistics (Hungarian Academy of Sciences). He is a board member at the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Lecture theatre R7 ||
 * Sixth Annual Language and Society Centre Lecture – 2013**
 * Presenter:** **Prof. Istvan Kecskes, State University of New York, Albany**
 * //Title: Interculturality and intercultural pragmatics//**
 * Abstract**
 * ISTVAN KECSKES** is Professor of Linguistics and Communication at the State University of New York, Albany, USA where he teaches graduate courses in pragmatics, second language acquisition and bilingualism and directs the English as a Second Language PhD and MA programs. Professor Kecskes is the President of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA). Some of his books and papers have been very influential in the fields of pragmatics and bilingualism. ‘Foreign language and mother tongue” published by Erlbaum in 2000 was the first book that described the effect of the second language on the first language. His latest books are an edited volume titled “//Research in Chinese as a Second Language//” published by De Gruyter in 2013 and //“Intercultural Pragmatics//” that will be published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
 * 23rd October, 2013 Venue: Building 08
 * Time: 3:00pm ||

=2013 LASC lecture=

On Wednesday 13 March, Dr. Terri Kim, from the University of East London will give a public lecture from 4.00 to 5.00pm in the Auditorium of the Japanese Studies Centre (Building 54, Clayton).

The title of Dr. Kim’s lecture is 'Transnational academic mobility and knowledge creation: a critical reflection on interculturality and (de)coloniality'.

An abstract of the lecture appears below:

'Transnational academic mobility and knowledge creation: a critical reflection on interculturality and (de)coloniality'

My lecture takes a critical stance at the relationship between intercultural experience, epistemic development and marketised higher education. It draws on my SRHE funded research (2011-12) outcomes. The initial proposition is that an important way to see the processes of academic mobility and the ways in which mobility is entwined with knowledge creation is through different types of knowledge, as ‘capital’. My research has examined the transfer and transformation of knowledge and the rise of ‘transnational identity capital’ (Kim, 2010) in the course, and as a result, of academic mobility and migration, drawing on both empirical and documentary research data - 35 selected interviews with contemporary mobile academics (including former doctoral students) as well as published (auto)biographies of well-known transnational academic intellectuals in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. My broader aim in this research is to offer a critical analysis of unequal power relations embedded in the process of forming and shaping new knowledge and identity capital among mobile academics in universities. It highlights the global-local knowledge nexus, through which interculturality is enmeshed with (de)//coloniality//. It further explores the possibility of intercultural dialogue of ‘knowledge’ in higher education to reconcile the epistemic division between //Wissenschaften// and //Weltanschauungen// and concludes with its implication for global social justice//.//

=** A Language and Society Centre Workshop **=
 * Presenter: Professor Suresh Canagarajah, LASC Distinguished Visiting Professor **

Title: Multilingual Literacy

 * About the presenter ** : Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor in the Departments of English and Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University. He had his early education in Sri Lanka where he taught English language and literature for a decade at the University of Jaffna. Later, he joined the faculty at the City University of New York (Baruch College and the Graduate Center) where he taught multilingual urban students for a decade. His research on the literacy concerns of African American students has appeared in composition journals. He has also studied issues in bilingualism and English language teaching. His book //Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching// (OUP, 1999) won Modern Language Association’s Mina Shaughnessy Award for the best research publication on the teaching of language and literacy. His subsequent publication //Geopolitics of Academic Writing// (UPittsburgh Press 2002) won the Gary Olson Award for the best book in social and rhetorical theory. //Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students// (University of Michigan Press, 2002) applies composition research and scholarship for the needs of multilingual students. His edited collection //Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice// (Erlbaum, 2005) examines linguistic and literacy constructs in the context of globalization. His study of World Englishes in Composition won the 2007 Braddock Award for the best article in the //College Composition and Communication// journal. Suresh edited the flagship journal of the professional organization for English language teachers, //TESOL Quarterly//, from 2004 to 2009. He is the past President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics.

= = = =