ABOUT US

The International Association of Language and Social Psychology was inaugurated at the sixth annual international conference in Ottawa 1997. This emerged following the collaboration and interest of colleagues at several previous international meetings and enjoyed continued success and increased membership at the seventh annual conference held at Cardiff University in Wales, 2000. Since then, we have held the International Conference on Language and Social Psychology (ICLASP) in Hong Kong (ICLASP8, 2002), at Penn State University (ICLASP9, 2004), in Bonn, Germany (ICLASP10, 2006), Tucson, Arizona (ICLASP11, 2008), Brisbane, Australia (ICLASP12, 2010), and most recently Fryslân, The Netherlands (ICLASP13, 2012). The next conference wil be held in Hawaii in 2014, and we look forward to seeing you there.

We welcome you to join us with your membership. Also please feel free at this time to meet our Executive Officers.

The primary purpose of the Association is to ensure the continuity and development of the biennial international conferences and the variety of functions these have served: the exchange of ideas; the making of contacts; the facilitation of collaborative research projects; the publication of articles and books; and especially, the sharing of experience among colleagues from a variety of disciplines and professions from around the world. The diversity of perspectives focusing on the intersection of language and social behavior and experience has been one of the exciting and rewarding features of the earlier conferences. At each conference, the membership and executive develop a Task Force to investigate a pressing issue and present their findings at the next conference. The most recent Task Force theme was Language and Tourism and was very well received at ICLASP13. The 2012-2014 Task Force theme is currently being negotiated. We very much hope this will continue to be a distinctive feature in the future, too.

How the Association develops will depend on the will and wishes of its members. Our aims include the addition of specialist workshops, small group meetings, and other academic activities referred to in our constitution. We look forward to contributions from our members to our new news blog and our website.

ICA PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT

Multilingual and Multicultural Communication
 

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Abstract

The last 50 years or so has seen a variety of interdependent processes associated with globalization, including greater geographical, demographic, social and information exchange and mobility, leading to an exponential increase in contacts and communication between cultures and languages. As a result many more people, especially in large urban areas are affected daily by intercultural and multilingual contacts. This is particularly the case in large urban environments around the world where the presence of speakers of hundreds of languages is not unusual. For example, a recent article in The Economist (10/9/2011) claimed that New York City had nearly as many languages (800) as Papua New Guinea, the country often regarded as home to the highest number of languages (according to Ethnologue, around 830). London is reputedly home to several hundred languages.

Recent research, including that by MERCATOR (The Fryske Akademy, The Netherlands) an independent European Research Centre for Multilingualism, has begun to acknowledge multilingual communication as a norm worldwide, with an increasing amount of research being focused on the complexities underlying multilingualism in individual, developmental, and societal perspectives. With this proposal, which is a joint enterprise of MERCATOR, the School of Oriential and Asian Studies (University of London), the ICA-affiliated International Association of Language and Social Psychology, and the ICA Intergroup Communication Interest Group, we aim to explore some of these recent trends from an interdisciplinary perspective with insights from sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology and communication theory. Prominent researchers* in these different fields will be invited over the course of the day from the UK, Europe and elsewhere to not only present their own work, but also to be part of a roundtable at the end of the day that aims to begin the process of integrating interdisciplinary insights towards a testable model of multilingual communication.

*Cor van der Meer & Reinier Salverda (Netherlands), Francois Grin (Switzerland), Jean Marc Dewale (UK), Lid King & Dina Mehmedbegovic (UK), Li Wei (UK), Rupert Brown (UK), Anne Pauwels (UK), & Howard Giles (USA) & Itesh Sachdev (UK)
 

Description

There has recently been an exponential increase in daily multilingual contacts in urban environments around the world; London is home to serveral hundred languages. Prominent researchers in this field will not only present their own work, but also roundtable with a view to crafting a testable interdisciplinary model of multilingual communication

Rationale

Many participants are expected to be those who would normally would not be members of ICA (from IALSP and other networks). This proposal is consistent with the aims of ICA "to facilitate inclusiveness and debate among scholars from diverse national and cultural backgrounds and from multidisciplinary perspectives on communication-related issues" and IALSP's mission for "the exchange of ideas ..[and]..experienceds of colleagues from a variety of disciplines and professions from around the world. Hence, we seek to further the multi-disciplinary collaboration between researchers in Communication, Social Psychology of Language and other fields. It will be of particular interest to scholars in the Intergroup Communication Interest Group in ICA as well as IALSP which emphasizes the connectedness between language phenomena and processes and social psychology.

SOAS, University of London, the location for this Preconference, was founded in 1916 and is based in central London. It has an unparalleled history in offering the highest quality resources, knowledge and research in the widest range of cultures and languages of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, covering not only the languages, but also their literatures, arts, cultures, societies, histories, religions and legal systems. SOAS has a long history of responding to the needs of individuals, commerce, industry, government, non-government and other public organisations (including EU and other international organisations).

Additional Information

The Program is of confirmed speakers and draft program is:

8.15 – 9.00 am Registration
9.00 – 9. 15 am Introduction and Welcome
9.15 – 10.00 am Europe & Multilingualism (provisional title)
Cor van der Meer & Reinier Salverda, MERCATOR, Fryske Akademy, The Netherlands

10.00 – 10.45 am Economics of Multilingual Communication (provisional title)
François Grin, Université de Genève, Switzerland

10.45 – 11.15 am Tea/Coffee/Refreshments
11.15 – 12 noon Gender & Multilingual Communication (provisional title)
Anne Pauwels, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, UK

12 noon – 12.45 pm Communicating emotions in multiple languages
Jean Marc Dewaele, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

12.45 – 2 pm Lunch
2 – 2.45 pm Multilingual diversity in London (provisional)
Lid King & Dina Mehmedbegovic, The Languages Company, UK; & Institute of Education, University of London, UK

2.45 – 3.30 pm Diasporas: Multilingual and intercultural communication across time and space
Li Wei, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

3.30 – 4 pm Tea/coffee/refreshments
4 – 4.45 pm Acculturation (provisional title)
Rupert Brown, University of Sussex, UK

4.45 – 5.30 pm Round Table: Modelling Multilingual & Multicultural Communication
Chairs: Howard Giles & Itesh Sachdev, UCSB, USA; & SOAS, University of London, UK

5.30pm Reception

Participants
Howard Giles, HowieGiles@cox.net; U of California - Santa Barbara (Session Organizer)
 

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