Conference Theme

Over the last few decades the English language has been growing in the context of the growing pressure for communication across the whole of the world community. In current jargon, English has become globalized. But other languages, notably Chinese and Spanish, have been moving in the same direction although from very different starting points. We know little about the effects of this phenomenon on speakers, speech communities, and language systems. Some of the questions we hope this Conference will address are the following:

• What is the relation between institutional growth and systemic growth: does the meaning potential expand as the "territory" of the language expands, and if so, how?
• What is the role of language planning:
  (i) systemic: reform of script, regulation of grammar or vocabulary;
  (ii) institutional: language education policy, &c.?
• How much mixing does the language undergo in becoming a world language?
• What is the effect of language technology on the process?
• What is the effect:
  (i) of the writing system, and the distance between speech and writing, on the worldwide growth of a language?
  (ii) of the worldwide growth of a language on the writing system, and the distance between speech and writing?
• What is the effect of world language on multimodal communication?
• What are typical speakers' (users') attitudes to the phenomenon:
  (i) L1 (i.e., native speakers of a world language);
  (ii) L2 (i.e., non-native speakers of a world language)?
• What is a "world language": international? global? Or are these not really different?
• What variation is associated with growth towards "world language" status:
  (i) Dialectal, i.e., user-based variation?
  (ii) Diatypic, i.e., use-based variation (such as register)?
• How does a world language impact on local identities, whether ethnic, national, or socio-economic?
• What are the implications of the "world language" phenomenon for a general linguistic theory?

There are comparative questions as well, such as

• differences and similarities in the three patterns of growth displayed by English, Chinese and Spanish;
• the place of other international languages, such as Arabic, Hindi/Urdu, Russian, Malay/Indonesian, French;
• the different roles of language pedagogy, the media, the economy, and so on in contributing to growth of a language into a world language.

Dates and Venues

For more details, please refer to the Conference and Pre-Conference Institute pages.

Pre-Conference Institute

Conference