A free asynchronous symposium, online from Monday 11 December 2017

Convened by Una Cunningham and Jeanette King, University of Canterbury

Call for papers

We invite researchers, students, teachers and community members who are interested in sharing their work and insights into the challenges and benefits of Intergenerational transmission of minority languages to this third international Symposium. This year’s symposium will be asynchronous (further information below).

The relative success of intergenerational transmission of minority languages varies widely depending on a range of factors including the influence of language ideologies and the level of support for minority language parents, the presence of minority language support in schools and ECE, the perceived necessity or desirability of speaking the minority language and pressures from the majority language.

There are obvious benefits to helping children grow up with two languages. On the individual level, they are able to communicate with family and extended family and there is some evidepexels-photo-89873nce that there may be cognitive benefits to bilingualism itself. Ethnolinguistic communities benefit from their language being passed on in new contexts. On the national level, bilingual citizens can contribute to trade and tourism. However, families face a wide array of challenges that may thwart their intentions to raise their children speaking a minority language. Other families may not be persuaded that bilingualism is a worthwhile undertaking. Still others simply find it more expedient to use the majority language.

Abstracts

You are invited to submit a 150-200 word abstract for an paper or poster presentation to latlproject@canterbury.ac.nz by 2 October 2017.

Presentations are to be prerecorded (instructions will be supplied) and will be made available on the symposium website from 11 December 2017 where there will be provision for comments, questions, responses, and discussion. The idea is that the presentations will be available indefinitely unless presenters request otherwise. This makes the presentations available to a much wider audience of researchers, students and interested community members and policy makers than would otherwise be reached.

Please state your preference for either a poster or paper presentation.

Poster: One slide – 5 minutes

Paper: 15 minutes

Work in progress and student work is welcome. Authors will be notified by 23 October 2017. You will need to produce a video file (mp4 or flv) and share it via a link to our cloud storage. See Tips on how to make a pre-recorded presentationTips on how to make a poster  andTips for first-time presenters  for helpful hints on producing digital presentations and posters.

Further information will appear here on the Symposium website as it becomes available. Please address any questions to latlproject@canterbury.ac.nz.