International landscape for language and culture

The international landscape for languages, linguistics and area studies is changing rapidly. Globalisation is accelerating, but is increasingly counterbalanced by local and regional particularisms. Mobility and trade, together with technological advances, have increased the diversity of languages and cultures in contact in every country and city in the world. But they are also powering the emergence of wide ranging lingua francas, of which English is particularly dominant in business, science and entertainment.

At the same time, the gap is widening between monolingual and multilingual citizens. Those who are fluent and literate in two or more languages can benefit from most of the professional and personal opportunities the world can offer. But those who speak only their mother tongue are limited in their opportunities, especially if they are among the 25% of EU citizens who are not literate in any language.

These contradictions are being sharpened by an economic crisis that is widening social cleavages. As a result, linguistic and cultural differences are increasingly being transformed into political antagonisms. This poses very real challenges to our disciplinary areas. Although they are at the ‘soft’ end of the field of knowledge, language and culture are deeply rooted. We understand that they are often intractable and highly resistant to change, but that they can also be the motor of seismic shifts in economics, politics and society.

We are accustomed to mobilising the expertise we have in teaching and research in language and culture, and directing it towards educating our students who will be the future leaders. However, the time scales of change are ever shorter, and the public needs are ever greater. As a result, we must now face the challenge of bringing our knowledge and understanding to the wider community. LLAS is committed to assisting the academic community in this endeavour, and thereby making our contribution to creating a more humane world in which the values of linguistic and cultural enrichment for all can flourish.

Prof. Michael Kelly
Director of LLAS Centre for languages, linguistics and area studies

How do you become fluent in 11 languages?

Twenty-year-old Alex Rawlings has won a national competition to find the UK's most multi-lingual student.

The Oxford University undergraduate can currently speak 11 languages - English, Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian.

Entrants in the competition had to be aged between 16 and 22 and conversant in multiple languages.

Alex drew on all his skills to tell BBC News about his passion for learning languages and how he came to speak so many.

BBC news

Tweeting and omelettes at the 7th LLAS elearning symposium

LLAS has just celebrated its 7^th annual elearning symposium with a heady mix of workshops, presentations…and omelettes! The two-day event took place in Southampton on the 26^th and 27^th January 2012, and was attended by colleagues from across Europe.

Highlights included Professor Claire Warwick, from UCL, talking about how academics often underestimate the power of social media to advance research. She posed the question: ‘Is scholarly culture being changed by Facebook and social media?’ She argued that Twitter, for example, is not just chatter and that tweeters often make serious scholarly points. She described the Twitter phenomenon #tweetyourthesis, started by UCL, which involved PhD students tweeting the main idea behind their research. Her robust response to the idea that 140 characters are insufficient to describe research work was: ‘What kind of expert are you, if you can’t communicate your research to absolutely anyone? Being able to communicate is not dumbing down.’ Students involved in ‘tweeting their theses’ reported that the process helped them refine and clarify their ideas, broke down feelings of isolation, and helped them make contacts across the globe.

Another highlight was our video link to Newcastle University’s Digital kitchen project. A team led by Professor Paul Seedhouse have created an interactive kitchen which will teach you how to speak French – and make an omelette at the same time! Paul talked us through the project and then handed over to researchers Anne Preston and Clare Hooper to demonstrate how the kitchen worked – and we quickly decided we all wanted a French (German? Spanish? Chinese?) kitchen of our own! The project plans to create more kitchens for different languages and you can find out more at: http://digitalinstitute.ncl.ac.uk/ilablearn/kitchen

So…another symposium over and we begin to look forward to the next one. Watch out for videos and slides from the event on our website shortly http://www.llas.ac.uk/events/archive/6395 and for the call for papers in the summer.

LLAS looks forward to seeing you next year!

NHS translation bill tops £23m, says 2020 Health

The NHS in England spends £59,000 a day on translating documents and providing interpreters, according to a health think tank.

A Freedom of Information request by 2020 Health showed the total bill topped £23m last year - an increase of 17% since 2007, it said.

The organisation described the amount of money spent as "truly staggering".

BBC website

Why do we continue to isolate ourselves by only speaking English?

According to Will Hutton Britain's future economic and political wellbeing is being hamstrung by our reluctance to learn foreign languages

The Observer

French town bans word "mademoiselle"

A town in Western France has banned the word "mademoiselle" - the French equivalent of "miss". The move comes as feminist groups campaign for the word to be consigned to the dustbin of history everywhere. Could its days be numbered?

There are no longer any "mademoiselles" in the town of Cesson-Sevigne.

The small Brittany community has banned the use of the term in all its official documents, arguing that women, like men, should not be defined by their marital status.

 BBC news

15 ways to get ahead in your career in 2012

Get involved in LLAS in 2012 

1. Come along to the annual e-symposium at the University of Southampton on 27-28 January.
2. Submit a paper and attend the LLAS/ UCML/ AULC conference in Edinburgh on 5-6 July 2012.
3. If you are new to teaching in higher education come along to our new staff workshop on 12 April 2012.
4. Watch out for our annual Heads of Department workshop in September 2012 (date to be confirmed).
5. Learn to create online learning materials using our LOC tool. There is one in London on 17 April. If that’s not convenient ask us about running a workshop where you are.

Things to do in 2012 

1. HEFCE will be reviewing its support for Strategic and Vulnerable Subjects in 2012. Watch out for developments by checking out the HEFCE website regularly.
 2. Get involved in Speak to the Future, the national campaign for languages.
 3. Make sure you understand Key Information Sets. They will be required for every higher education course.
4. Encourage your best students to submit their work to Debut: the undergraduate journal of languages, linguistics and area studies
5. Teacher licensing in higher education is on the agenda. Check what you need to do to become a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy if you do not already have this status.

 Challenge yourself (and your colleagues) in 2012 

1. Think about how you can integrate environmental issues/ climate change into your courses. If you think you can’t, think again!
2. Learn more about what is happening with language teaching in schools.
3. Each month read an article about teaching and learning in a language other than English.
4. Share your teaching materials in HumBox or the Languagebox and take a look at other people’s.
5. Join the conservation: share your teaching ideas on Twitter