Venue: University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Email: caroline.marley@strath.ac.uk
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Event Date: 05/09/2014 - 06/09/2014
World-renowned expert on multilingualism, Professor Joseph Lo Bianco, will give keynote address at Scotland’s Children: Possible Futures at the University of Strathclyde on 5th September 2014.
His keynote presentation will address the topic Tomorrow's Children: Wired, Connected, Global and Polyglot?
It isn’t difficult to forecast that tomorrow’s children will be multilingual. The interconnected world they will inherit relies on talk (spoken talk, and what I will call “written conversation” or “typed talk”) and is fuelled by the technologies of communication and technologies of networking. Technologies of instantaneous translation, simple though they appear to us today, and often amusing or hilarious, were inconceivable only a decade ago. Communication will be multi-modal, of this there is no doubt, but, we must ask, will it be multi-lingual? I will discuss the prospects of a normalised multilingualism among children with reference to work in several Asian societies, where to pose the question is to invite bewilderment, and to Anglophone or English dominant societies, where to pose the question is to invite earnest concern, but little effective action. How can we make sure things will change?
For more information and to book a place visit the conference website.