In association with the Swiss Society for African Studies, the Walter Benjamin Kolleg of the University of Bern will host an interdisciplinary Symposium about “Language and language use in Africa: issues in research and everyday situations” at the 11 May 2017.
Africa is known as the continent where one can find the highest concentration of languages worldwide. This fact should make the continent one of the most interesting places for linguists and other scholars. Unfortunately, research on Africa, whether in the social sciences or in the humanities, generally does not show much awareness of language as a determining variable, whereas research that does, even at a global level, tends to ignore African studies involving language as relevant to their inquiry.
Trying to counter this apparent lack of interest, the symposium will touch on several topics including inter- and multidisciplinary approaches. Thus, it will focus on a number of issues that Researchers and practitioners face in the field while conducting research in Africa, such as the lack of databases and technological means that could facilitate their job, as well as practical communicational issues with the local populations. However, there are projects that attempt to overcome these difficulties in innovative ways and with creative technologies. Moreover, the African diaspora contributes to the solution with different approaches and ideas to increase the interest in language research on the continent. The congress will provide the opportunity to discuss projects dealing with the participation and the role of African languages in different interdisciplinary contexts. It will also address questions of language equity and sustainability as a follow-up to the Research Fair on sustainable development goals (SDGs) organized by KFPE in collaboration with the Swiss Agency of Development and Cooperation in November 2016 ; see the fact sheet on https://naturalsciences.ch/organisations/kfpe/workshops_seminars/81805-research-and-innovation-as-drivers-in-achieving-the-sustainable-development-goals
Designed to discuss several of the points mentioned above, the symposium will provide scholars from different disciplines of the social sciences, such as literature, linguistics, sociolinguistics (including language policies), sociology, social anthropology, philosophy, among others, with the opportunity to share reflections from different perspectives. The definition, relevance and contribution of language-related good
practice, of research on language use, and of language-sensitive digital resources for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals will be major foci of the symposium and of an open panel (see separate
invitation).
Paper proposals (English or French) should include full contact details (email address, full mailing address, and affiliation) and an abstract of up to 250 words. Please send your proposals to the following address: djouroukoro.diallo@unibe.ch. The deadline for the proposals is 30 April 2017.
