TRANSNATIONALIZING MODERN LANGUAGES: RESHAPING THE DISCIPLINE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The British Academy, Friday, 26 February 2016

The event presented the work that the project is accomplishing within HE, schools and the wider community. It asked how MLs promote cultural as well as linguistic competences in an increasingly globalized world? How University curricula articulate with what students study in schools? How they encourage an understanding of notions of translation within multicultural spaces and societies, increasingly characterized by multilingual practices?

Loredana Polezzi began the event by speaking about the themes of the project is addressing and the publics with which it is engaging. The first session was introduced by Jocelyn Wyburd (Chair, UCML) and Derek Duncan, who presented the work of the project’s partnership with schools in Edinburgh. Chris Hume and Julie Philip, who both teach at Castlebrae Community High School, explored the variety of media through which the concept of translating cultures has been explored within the classroom. The presentations of Jenny Burns and Naomi Wells together with that of the writer Shirin Ramzanali Fazel discussed the series of creative writing workshops that are taking place in the West Midlands and which demonstrate how research in MLs can be put into practice and dialogue with new audiences within the multicultural and multilingual environment surrounding the University. Listen to the first session of the day.

The second session, introduced by Nigel Vincent of the British Academy looked at how languages and cultures are taught in HE, at the nature and future of MLs as a university discipline, and at students’ understanding of the value of the skill-sets with which the discipline equips them. Charles Burdett discussed the thinking behind the forthcoming series of texts, Transnationalizing Modern Languages, which will be published by Liverpool University Press. Li Wei (UCL), part of the large grant ‘Translation and Translanguaging’ (2014-2017), spoke about language learning in the 21^st century. Charles Forsdick, the theme leader of ‘Translating Cultures’, spoke about how the theme is impacting on the disciplinary field of MLs. Listen to the second session of the day.

Postcards design are by Gianmarco Mancosu.