Five-day congress on world languages begins on Jan. 3

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, DEC. 19. The Alumni Association of Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL) will organise an international congress on "World Languages in Multilingual Contexts" in the city from January 3, 2001. About 130 plenary and parallel paper presentations and workshops will be held during the congress in which eminent theoreticians and practitioners from across the world are expected to participate.

Speaking to the presspersons here on Tuesday, the president of the congress, Prof. M.L. Tickoo, said the five-day session would be inaugurated by the Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Mr. M.K. Kaw, at Gokak Auditorium on CIEFL campus. The congress aims at building awareness on the significant roles that Languages of Wide Circulation (LWC) play in the metropolises and also in the I-T cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore, he said.

The primary focus of the congress would be on the issues and opportunities that arise in using English in the globalising world. The meet would also pay attention to the other world languages, including some of India's own LWCS, he said.

A special session on "Language & Law" would have the legal practitioners and academicians joining for a panel discussion on the subject. During the session "New English Dictionaries", Mr. John Simpson of the Oxford University Press and Mr. Patrick Gillard of the Cambridge University Press would make presentations apart from lexicographers from CIEFL.

There would be separate sessions on Machine Translation, Computational Linguistics and New Technologies in Language Education, said Prof. Tickoo. The keynote speakers include the doyen of Artificial Intelligence studies, Prof. Aravind Joshi from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Apart from workshops, panel discussions would also be held on "World Englishes", "Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances" and "Languages for Specific Purposes".

According to Prof. Tickoo, the speakers at the congress include, Prof. Merrill Swain of OISE, Canada, Prof. Braj Kachru, University of Illinois, USA, Prof. Christopher Candlin, Maquerie University, Australia, Profs. Spolsky, Shohamy and Raphael -- three of Israel's leading language educators, Prof. Yamuna Kachru, University of Illinois, Prof. Michael Byram, University of Durham, UK, and Prof. Vijay Bhatia, City University of Hong Kong.

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