18th International Conference on Minority Languages
University of the Basque Country, Bilbao.
March 24-26, 2021.
Minority languages are part of a globalized and technological mobile world in which the Internet has been instrumental for the acceleration of communication, knowledge and information mobility, and in which increased levels of human mobility and immigration are constitutive of contemporary urban and rural societies. Minority language speakers have to address more multicultural and multilingual communicational relations than ever, across networks connected at the local and translocal levels.
Within such intensified global flows, minority languages are part of emerging new global economic, aesthetic and cultural trends and power relations. Those trends and relations govern speakers’ language and cultural choices, and often promote inequality and a monolingual bias, including native speakerness, standardness, and the overarching hegemony of global English. Yet, at the same time, those conditions seek to chart new promising frameworks of value for minority languages and varieties that challenge such binary historical relations with majority, powerful languages and varieties.
The 18th International Conference on Minority Languages, to be held in Bilbao (Basque Country) from 24th to 26th March 2021, is organized by the NOR Research Group at the University of the Basque Country. It will deal with the subject of minority or small languages and minority speakers all over the world. It aims to create a dialogue among disciplines by asking how minority languages are facing those challenging new multilingual and multicultural circumstances, and how minority speakers are negotiating and reinventing minority linguistic resources in moving locally and globally.
The ICML 2021 will be structured in many thematic fields, such as:
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Minority languages revitalization experiences in mutilingual and global contexts.
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Language policy and planning in challenging mutilingual and multicultural enviroments.
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Education, literacy and language learning criteria for a multilingual system.
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Sociolinguistic and ethnographic approaches: Languages ideologies, identities and attitudes in a changing globalized world.
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Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology: language in the production of power relations and social inequalities.
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Communication and Media Studies: New communication media and multilingualism.
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Cultural practices and creative industries.
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Other relevant areas.
Important dates
Submission for proposals: April 1 to August 23, 2020.
Notification of acceptance of proposals: October, 2020.
Proposals
Proposals regarding original, previously unpublished research on minority languages are invited in three formats: individual papers, posters and colloquia. Proposals should relate to one (or more) of the conference themes listed above.
Proposals should be related to one or many of the abovementioned fields.
Proposals for individual papers or posters
Please submit an abstract (300-words including references) of your paper or poster. The abstract should include enough detail to allow reviewers to judge the scientific merits of the proposal.
Oral papers will be allotted 15 minutes for presentation. After all the papers of the panel have been presented, 30 minutes will be reserved for questions and discussion.
A poster presentation combines a visual display on a poster board of the highlights of research with a question-and-answer opportunity. The poster will be available for viewing by participants during the slot indicated in the conference programme. All participants are encouraged to visit the posters and contact the main author during the conference.
Please make use of our templates to send your proposal. You can download them below:
Proposals for colloquia
Colloquia are collections of paper presentations which relate to a narrowly defined topic of interest and are offered in a 1,5 hour time block. Proposals for colloquia are limited to 500 words and should include brief summaries of each of the papers to be included, along with paper titles and individual authors’ names.
Sufficient detail should be provided to allow peer reviewers to judge the scientific merit of the proposal. A chair/discussant for the session must also be identified. The person submitting a proposal for a colloquium is responsible for securing the permission and co-operation of all participants before the proposal is submitted.
Please make use of our templates to send your proposal. You can download them below:
Linguistic policy of the conference
The language policy of the Conference is based on four principles:
Efficacy: it is about facilitating communication and exchange between all participants.
Wide access to speech: the objective is that the greatest number of people can share their point of view, regardless of their linguistic competence.
Visibility: it is about showing the linguistic variety of our planet.
Reflection: it is about thinking on trends towards linguistic homogenization in the academic world.
Based on these principles, the official languages of the conference will be English, Spanish, French and Basque. This is intended to give voice to different points of view, while ensuring high understandability.
Submit your paper
All proposals should be sent using the EasyChair platform. Please click on the button below to submit yours: