8th Annual Conference
LANGUAGE, LANGUAGES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES: ICT in the Service for Languages
The 2010 conference brings forth issues relating to language technologies. Aware of the fact that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) serve globalization, the conference is interested in how to best employ ICT to support (a) all European languages, and (b) a new multilingual ethos of communication.
Looking critically at the effects of ICT use, but also looking to ICT for language empowerment, the conference hopes to foster initiatives for cooperation among EU member states in order to share knowledge and expertise in the following topics, which will constitute the central points of concern throughout the conference:
· Language technologies
· Languages and the Internet
· Digital media and the teaching of languages
Each topic will be addressed at each of the three plenaries by the conference keynote speakers.
These topics will also motivate talks by a select group of speakers who will present the projects and products developed in their country with the aim of supporting their official language, other languages, or plurilingual citizenry. There will also be room for poster sessions.
The rationale for these formats is for conference participants to have an opportunity:
- to inform or be informed about an area that concerns them most
- tounderstand, discuss, share relatedexperiences and concerns
- to create the necessary conditions for collaborative action
1. Language technology
Thepresentations within this sectionwillbeconcernedwithprojectsandproductsusingnewtechnologiestoservicenaturallanguages, e.g. electronic dictionaries, multilingual thesauri, and corpora (in the service of lexicography, language research, etc.). Contributionsmay alsobeconcernedwiththeuseoftools for machine translation, dictionary conversion, multilingual document generation, information extraction, keyword assignment and classification, as well as document navigation, language recognition, summarisation, and various social networks, based on different types of input extracted from text.
2. Language and the Internet
The wide use of the Internet is creating new possibilities for languages and language contacts; it is a new contact zone. Ithasunlimited possibilities of doing things with language (for example to revitalizelanguagesanddialects), and it can be of service to all languages –big and small. However, the internet is also a space in which linguistic inequalities are reproduced and it is important to understand how so that initiatives in addition to those which have already been taken may be developed through collaborative efforts. It is important to acknowledge that though two thirds of global internet users are non-English speakers, most of the literature on the net and computer-mediated-communication (CMC) is exclusively on English. The main objective of these contributions that present related projects and products will be to focus on internet related CMC in various languages, and perhaps focus on difficulties related with writing systems, the structure and features of local languages and how they affect internet use, code switching, etc.
3. Digital media and the teaching of languages
The presentations under this general heading will deal with projects concerned with the use of ICT in language teaching, learning (and testing) –particularly initiatives that move away from the practices of the 70s and the 80s, linked with Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). It will take into account the immense changes in the semiotic landscape –changes which demand that language teaching be concerned with new and multimodal texts, hypermedia, etc., and will also focus on e-learning and distance learning projects (and tools), created to support language, languages, and teachers of language. Reflections and research regarding the effects of the use of ICT on language teaching curricula, materials, methods and practices will also be a component of this section.
DRAFT CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
19.30-21.30 Welcome reception
09.30-10.45 Welcome addresses and conference opening
10.45-11.45 Plenary 1, and discussion
11.45-12.15 Coffee break
12.15-13.15 Plenary 2, and discussion
13.15-13.45 Country-specific project
13.45-14.30 Buffet lunch
14.30-15.30 Poster sessions
15.30-18.00 Country-specific projects and discussion
20.30-22.30 Formal dinner
09.30-10.30 Plenary 3 and discussion
10.30-11.00 Country specific project
11.00-11.30 Coffee break
11.30-13.00 Country specific projects and discussion
13.00-14.00 Buffet lunch
14.00-16.00 General Assembly (for members and invited guests)
