Workshop: Language and migration

Linguistic diversity is valued in this school (Photo Courtesy of Angela Turzynski-Azimi)

The 46th annual conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (ALS) is being hosted by the University of Western Sydney in Parramatta.

Conference dates: Wednesday 9 December – Friday 11 December.

As part of the conference a workshop devoted to “Language and migration” is being convened by Ingrid Piller and Donna Butorac. We invite relevant abstracts.

Call for papers: Language and migration

International migration is widely perceived to have reached levels of complexity unprecedented in human history. A few international migration magnet destinations (Australasia, the Gulf States, North America and Western Europe) have been transformed into ‘super-diverse’ societies in the past few decades. Consequently, social questions related to migration (how to ensure social cohesion and sustainability; how to safeguard the rights of old-timers and newcomers; how to manage migration economically and ethically; etc.) have become pressing and hotly contested political issues in many societies around the globe, including Australia. Language is central to many of these debates.

While the social importance of migration can hardly be overstated and needs little justification, migration raises equally pressing theoretical questions for the discipline of linguistics: we are currently witnessing a paradigm shift from language understood as an object in space towards an understanding of language as a process in motion. Developing a new ‘sociolinguistics of mobility’ is widely considered as constituting the current frontier in (socio)linguistic theorizing.

The workshop is intended to showcase ongoing innovative Australian research exploring the relationship between language and migration and contributing to the sociolinguistics of mobility.

Abstract Submission Requirements for ALS 2015

All abstracts will be due 1 September 2015, and details about the submission process are available at http://www.als.asn.au/conferences/uws-2015/call-for-papers. When submitting your abstract, make sure to indicate that you wish for it to be considered for the “Language and migration” workshop.