The Theme
It is only natural that an AILA World congress in Europe should focus on aspects of multilingual matters and the linguistic richness of this continent. The European Union and the Council of Europe have a clearly defined policy to preserve Europe as a multilingual and multicultural region. Because of the expansion of the European Union in the coming years, multilingualism and the challenges and opportunities connected with it will be a very topical theme in 2008, thus attracting a lot of attention and promising to be a great stimulus for academic debate. Consequently, the GAL-Executive and the AGM chose
as the theme for the 2008 congress.
It is felt that Germany with its growing migrant community, and the Ruhr Area as a region which managed to form a very special community from multicultural and multilingual roots during the first industrial revolution are particularly well suited to host a conference on this topic.