Deivis D. Pothin

Today is the last day of the conference and many of the participants are already rushing to the airport to fly back home. I decided to stay and leave on Saturday. I had the chance to listen to the last keynote speaker, Rita Franceschini, from the Free University of Bozen, in Italy. She talked about future research opportunities on multilingualism.

According to Rita, areas that need further research include:

1. Historical aspects of multilingualism;

2. Multilingualism in business and the use of linguae francae;

3. Sociolinguistics dimensions, such as majority language speakers use (parts of) languages of minorities;

4. Multilingualism in the individual, especially how 4 to 14 year olds acquire two, three or more languages as well as learners in a more advanced age; continued studies on the acquisition of a third language (or fourth language) and the effects on those languages already mastered;

5. Computer mediated communication, investigating, for example, which methods non-native speakers of English, who dominate the internet, use to be understood worldwide, how problems in expressing oneself are overcome and which approach(es) is (are) taken towards cultural assumptions.

Well, I have to say that it was a very intense and tiring week but it was worth giving up my last week of holidays. Besides keeping up-to-date with the new findings in my area and making new contacts, it also motivated me to keep on reading and writing. It is quite easy to leave it for second plan once you’ve finished (part of) your postgraduate studies and have the hectic life of a primary school teacher (which, by the way, restarts next week.)