The Project
The 15th World Congress of Applied Linguistics will be held in Essen from August, 24.-29.2008. The conference theme is “Multilingualism: challenges and opportunities.” The congress is organised by the German Association of Applied Linguistics (GAL e.V.), the University of Duisburg-Essen, Congress Centre Essen (CCE), and further partners. We are inviting other potential partners from politics, business, education et al. to join in on the preparations for AILA 2008.
AILA is the acronym for Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée or International Association of Applied Linguistics. Through its member associations, AILA currently has a membership of more than 8.000 individuals worldwide who as researchers, policy makers or practitioners are active in the field of Applied Linguistics. The problems Applied Linguistics deals with range from aspects of the linguistic and communicative competence of the individual such as first or second language acquisition, literacy, language disorders, etc. to language and communication related problems in and between societies such as e.g. language variation and linguistic discrimination, multilingualism, language conflict, language policy and language planning.
AILA is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) enjoying Status B (mutual information and consultation) with UNESCO.
Considering Europe and its many countries and regions, it was an obvious choice to focus on issues relating to multicultural and multilingual matters. The European Union as well as the Council of Europe are actively encouraging language policies which aim at the preservation of the multicultural and multilingual traditions of our continent. Essen and the Ruhr Region with its multicultural history together with more recent multicultural developments is a perfect setting to experience and discuss, how the challenges of structural and cultural changes associated with globalization can be met.
The World Congress encourages the interdisciplinary dialogue between theory and practice. At the congress, topics such as language policy, language education, in-company communication, global communication in business and industry, media and communication, to name but a few, will be discussed.