Royal Irish Academy National Committee for Modern Language Studies 30th Annual Research Symposium

Intercultural Spaces: Language, Culture, Identity

In today's global culture the spaces we inhabit are becoming increasingly intercultural. Both at home and abroad we find ourselves in situations which involve interacting with and adapting to people from cultures different from our own. Such intercultural contacts bring about a range of new issues requiring the development of new awareness and skills and have far-reaching consequences on personal and cultural identities and thier expression through language. This confererence addresses the question of how language, culture and identity are expressed and transformed by intercultural contact, and will explore the problems and benefits, conflicts and insights which can arise from such encounters.

Papers are invited which focus on any of the intercultural dimensions of language, culture and identity, from a variety of perspectives (e.g. linguistic, educational, sociological, psychological, artistic/literary, historical, theoretical, political, post-colonial) as expressed in a variety of genres (e.g. academic research, literature, autobiography, cinema, media). Topics could include, for example: the intercultural classroom/workplace; culture shock, adaptation, experiences of marginality; language and power/racism; changing linguistic/cultural expressions of identity; intercultural issues/representations of alterity in literature, in media discourse and in language mediation (translation, interpreting); intercutlural conflict in cinema, literature, media.