NEWS More than 150 participants from universities in Sweden and several other countries gathered on 7–8 May at Campus Umeå to attend the international conference “The Role of Language in Challenging Times: Minority, Majority, and Educational Perspectives.”
Gisela Håkansson och Natasha Ringblom
Image Sandra Lundström
Keynote: Åsta Haukås
Image Sandra Lundström
Keynote: Carla Jonsson
Image Sandra Lundström
Aaron Ihse Seward tar emot pris för bästa studentuppsats.
Image Sandra Lundström
Keynote: Ketty Andersson
Image Sandra Lundström
Keynote: Alastair Henry
Image Sara Flink
Gisela Håkansson och Natasha Ringblom
Keynote: Åsta Haukås
Keynote: Carla Jonsson
Aaron Ihse Seward tar emot pris för bästa studentuppsats.
Keynote: Ketty Andersson
Keynote: Alastair Henry
The conference, organised by the Department of Language Studies at Umeå University in collaboration with the Swedish Association for Applied Linguistics (ASLA), focused on the importance of language in a changing and complex society. Hanna-Máret Outakoski, a professor at Sámi allaskuvla in Norway, opened the conference in Northern Sámi.
“By bringing together participants from different countries and fields of research, we created an important forum for exchanging knowledge about the role of language in society—especially when it comes to raising awareness of and strengthening minority languages and the people who speak them,” says Natasha Ringblom, docent of Russian and one of the conference organisers.
The conference offered a wide-ranging program featuring keynotes, panel discussions, individual presentations, and poster sessions, where researchers came together to discuss current challenges and opportunities in linguistics. The focus was on issues related to multilingualism, language policy, and the role of education, as well as how minority languages can be strengthened in times of political and social uncertainty.
The plenary lectures were delivered by Åsta Haukås at the University of Bergen, Ketty Andersson at Lund University, Alastair Henry at Lund University, and Carla Jonsson at Umeå University. Gisela Håkansson, professor emerita at Lund University and Linnaeus University, concluded the conference with a summary on the theme “What are our main takeaways?”
Since 2016, ASLA has presented an award for the best master’s (one year or two year) thesis at Swedish universities in a subject within the field of applied linguistics. This year, the prize went to Aaron Ihse Seward, Malmö University for his thesis Ordundervisning med testbaserat lärande och robust ordundervisning i grundskolans tidiga år.
ASLA is the Swedish branch of the international association of applied linguistics, AILA (Association internationale de linguistique appliquée). ASLA’s aim is to promote research concerning practical problems to do with language, facilitate contacts between language researchers in Sweden and other countries and encourage participation in AILA’s research networks.
