Njoftim!
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
RE-IMAGINING TEACHING AND RESEARCH IN THE FACE OF THE NEW DYNAMICS REALITY
Venue: Faculty of Foreign Languages, Tirana, Albania
Date: December 9th, 2021
“Once it was the color of saying…”
Dylan Thomas, Poems, Turin, Einaudi 2002
The need for adapting and re-imagining teaching and research across the spectrum of foreign languages became more pressing and more demanding in the conditions of social distancing. Social interaction was increasingly mediated by digital media and virtual communities. Therefore, a similar significant change could not have been avoided in the teaching and research domain where speech and communication were adjusted to the realities where they were rendered; new demands cropped up and undoubtedly alternative methods and tools of teaching and communication emerged. Accordingly, what Thomas called “the color of saying”, the word semantics which renders the feeling, changed alongside with the “way of doing”, i.e. the way how we render these utterances.
As the new century brought about a new spirit of resilience, invoked not only by the crisis, but also by labor market demands, new digital technologies, the university strategies and research focused particularly on a better adaptation of language professions to the new labor market landscape and the technological trends. We aim at making the university environment a more favorable and open place for students who wish to confirm their knowledge and experience in an increasingly competitive labor market.
Within this framework, the Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Tirana, organizes a scientific international conference inviting researchers, lecturers and experts to present their works in order to exchange best practices and propose concrete and innovative actions in the field of teaching and research to adequately meet the technological societal developments of the XXI century.
This conference is articulated in five axes, offering research studies in the following fields:
1.Linguistics and communication: – In-depth study of linguistics as a science in its own right during the first half of the XX century is lately focusing more and more on studies on applied linguistics. The independence and development of various disciplines such as translation, communication, didactics, information language, etc. where the language remains the subject matter and object of study, paved the way towards global and contextual, interactive and experimental re-imagining of linguistics.
Moreover, in the current context, language as a common means joining communities without geographical boundaries, language of the inclusion of the Other, undertook a primary role in the communication of an increasingly open and threatened world from isolation.
The confrontation of Language with “languages” used in social networks has lately increased the need of a linguistic analysis of new communication practices which have put in doubt the language norms. Social networks and the occurrence of a new linguistic community have generated new norms and skills or even a deviation from the norm. Multilingualism in social networks, the adaptation of youth to new linguistic, social and cultural contexts, has brought about language novelties and richer cultural exchanges. On the other hand, the use of Internet, communication via social networks as an expression of linguistic pragmatics has therefore necessitated linguistic concessions (such as limited vocabulary, contractions, neologisms, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc.). Questions we raise and the focus of our discussions will be as in the following:
– Language confronting social and cultural changes; its relationship with social network “languages”
– Communication of social networks – levelling the language and culture or enriching them in a new form?
– Computer language: the role of information technology means and methods in the verification of language hypothesis
– Language analysis of corpuses in the function of professional and didactic usages
2. Didactics of foreign languages: – Challenges, new strategies and perspectives imposed by a new era, require the use of best practices in on-line teaching as the future means in education and mainstream new professional figures in the dynamic labor market. The crises situation created by the pandemic reinforced the need for teacher training and future teacher qualification with best skills in information technology and communication. This introduces us to many questions on how the future teacher background and capacities should be reconceived in line with teaching methodology and practices through digital technology and distance interactive teaching approaches. On the focus of our didactic issues will be:
– learning strategies, teaching methodologies and interaction
– classroom and/or “on line” situation/practice
– adaptation to the context and audience in the teaching process
– teacher training and teacher capacity development in the new conditions to ensure inter alia teachers and students psychological wellbeing
3. Literature: Literature has been commonly considered as an “expression of society” (Louis de Bonald), but also as a prediction of social situations. Therefore, in the conditions of the pandemic, the readers found themselves represented in Camus´s context of The Plague and reading took a significant role. The evocation of Epidemic in literature from Camus´s The Plague to Ph. Roth´s Nemesis, is an old literary motif which invites us to eventually reflect on:
– human situation, the confrontation of man with The Evil and the fragility of human life,
– author-text-reader relationship as a cognitive and self-cognitive process and source of satisfaction;
– reading as an everlasting human therapy, as a relationship between individuals and society in the current socio-cultural background,
– reading, in the educational context, as a linguistic “gym” which improves speaking and writing skills, encourages inspiration and sets in motion the imagination. By praising the role of reading nowadays how can we learn about literature? Which would be the efficient approaches to keep the interest for literature and reading alive in the digital age?
4. Translation/interpretation: – The advancement of new information and communication technologies and their concrete application has undoubtedly affected the science of translation which is increasingly embracing new means and perspectives. On the other hand, language evolution, social and cultural changes, changes of translation trends and “modes” has necessitated the retranslations of classics and the reflection on the ratio between faithfulness and alienation in translation, the notion of faithfulness, the relationship of the author and the translator, the ethics and aesthetics in translation, etc. In the framework of this conference we would propose the reconsideration of these universal notions in a new context as new fields of research as in the following:
– Translation, meaning construction – linguistic and extra-linguistic context
– Retranslation, a challenge of the new century and the need of comparative studies in the retranslation context;
– Translation as an interdisciplinary science converging with other disciplines;
– Translation as an intermediation between cultures – transference of cultural units and preservation of acculturation;
– on-line interpretation – a future technique and challenge.
– Interpretation, figure, role and place of the interpreter in the public services
5. Development of new research approaches: Lately, the need to exceed the traditional research model is more and more being considered. The researchers and university research structures cannot function in isolation. Their needs and outputs should be seen as an integral part of a system having a direct impact on the society which in turn means cooperation and synergy between research stakeholders as well as the political, economic and social authorities. On the other hand, the digital age has changed the information research practices as well as the publications of researcher-lecturers, therefore the exchanges in this framework would have been very useful. Beyond the provision of various instruments in the research field and a multitude of resources and data, the digital space modifies the output and the dissemination of knowledge. The assessment, protection, transference of research outcomes and their exchange pose another challenge to be addressed by the researchers in terms of the need to be organized and to function in research networks.
Please click the link to fill in the call for proposal https://forms.office.com/r/4gidiDtyYS
Important dates
Abstract submission: October, 15th 2021
Notification of acceptance: November, 15th 2021
Conference Languages: English and Albanian
Note: Foreign Speakers are allowed to present in their native language.
- The conference proceedings will be published after their preliminary collection and assessment by the scientific committee
- Conference participation fee:
P/S The conference has been planned to take place in the auditorium and online but this remains to be considered due to the upcoming Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and regulations.