World’s leading applied linguists Wollongong bound

Jun 29, 2007

Language testing for citizenship, multilingualism and language issues around migration and refugees will be some of the hot topics at the 32nd Annual Congress of Applied Linguistics Association of Australia to be held at Wollongong from 1-3 July.

These issues will be discussed by about 200 applied linguists along with representatives from community groups and from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

The theme of the conference, “Making a Difference” is intended to showcase the contribution of linguists working in such areas as language teaching and learning, policy development, discourse analysis, language assessment, language development and bilingualism.

Conference conveners, Dr Ken Cruickshank and Dr Honglin Chen, of UOW’s Faculty of Education, said the rapid worldwide increase in migration and reactions to it, the expansion of media and technology, political changes at international and local levels are both challenges and opportunities for research in applied linguistics.

Keynote speakers will be:

• Professor Jill Bourne who is Professor of Primary Education at the University of Southampton;

• Professor Jan Blommaert who is Professor and Chair of Languages in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and who is also part-time Professor of African Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at Ghent University, Belgium;

• Professor Rod Ellis from the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland;

• Professor Ingrid Piller an applied sociolinguist who is Executive Director of the Adult Migrant English Program Research Centre at Macquarie University.

The conference is being hosted by the Centre for Research in Language and Literacy (CRILL) in the Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong in conjunction with the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ASFLA) conference, with an overlap day on 1 July.

Organisers say this will be a chance to stimulate debate and explore further the theme of the ASFLA conference: Bridging Discourses, with opportunities in the parallel sessions and the closing forum for dialogue between various approaches to theory and practice in the applied linguistics field.

Media please note

Conference dates: Sunday 1 July to Tuesday 3 July. Venue: McKinnon Building (Bldg 67), University of Wollongong. The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, will be greeting conference participants at 8.45am on Monday 2 July.

For further information contact Dr Honglin Chen on 4221 3941 or mobile 0402 386797.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128