Multilingualism – expert to give free public lecture on challenges and benefits

Please note, this page has been archived and is no longer being updated.

Multilingualism is a feature of many communities across the world. A leading expert in the subject is to give a free public lecture at Swansea University on 30 March, looking at the challenges and benefits it brings.

Janice Carruthers is Professor of French Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast, where she was Head of the School of Modern Languages from 2011-2016.

About the lecture:

  • Thursday 30 March 2017 at 6.30 pm (reception from 6.00pm)
  • James Callaghan Lecture Theatre, James Callaghan Building, Swansea University, Singleton Campus (building 4 on this map)
  • The lecture is free of charge and open to all

Reserve your free place here  Or contact riah@swansea.ac.uk or 01792 295190 and leave your name and number of places required.

600 x 448Professor Janice Carruthers (pictured) explained:

“This talk will draw on my research as part of the AHRC-funded MEITS project: ‘Multilingualism. Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies’ (www.meits.org).

The strand I lead addresses sociolinguistic issues around multilingualism in France and Ireland.  I will focus mostly on France, discussing the situation of minoritised regional languages as well as linguistic variation in the context of superdiverse urban environments.

The focus will be on questions of identity, diversity and social cohesion. The discussion of minoritised languages will also include some reflection on the current context of Irish in Northern Ireland and the highly sensitive issues around language, identity and language policy.“

Professor Julian Preece, Head of Languages, Translation and Interpreting at Swansea University, said:

"It is a privilege to welcome Professor Carruthers to Swansea, in her capacity as both a renowned international scholar on French linguistics and as Leadership Fellow in Modern Languages at the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Her lecture on multilingualism in contemporary society is timely and will address current complex issues such as identity, diversity and social cohesion".

Modern languages

About Professor Janice Carruthers

In January 2017, Professor Carruthers was appointed Leadership Fellow in Modern Languages at the Arts and Humanities Research Council where she will work with the AHRC and the Modern Languages community in the UK to support, develop and champion research in Languages.

Her research interests include sociolinguistics, language variation, temporality, orality and spoken language, corpus linguistics and language policy. She leads the sociolinguistics strand of the AHRC-funded Open World MEITS project (Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies), led by Cambridge, with partners in Queen’s Belfast, Nottingham and Edinburgh.

Research Institute for Arts and Humanities, at Swansea University

Study languages, translation and interpreting at Swansea University