Speaking for Itself
Language, Place and the Public Interest
The role of language in society and how it shapes identity will be the focus of a series of talks by two of the world's leading linguists when they visit the University of Aberdeen next week.
Husband and wife James and Lesley Milroy are internationally renowned linguists who have been invited to give the James Murray Brown Lectures 2004.
These three lectures will take place on Wednesday 23, Friday 25, and Monday 28 June, at the Regent Lecture Theatre, Regent Building, King's College, at 7pm, each followed by a wine reception.
The lectures celebrate the launch of the University's new Centre for Linguistic Research and the opening of a new Phonetics Laboratory within the School of Language and Literature.
Dr Barbara Fennell, Head of the School of Language and Literature, said: "Jim and Lesley are leading edge scholars in our field, who have inspired researchers across the globe with their investigations into the ways in which language functions in society. Their lectures on language, power, authority and identity will also focus on Scotland and Ireland, and will attract a broad audience interested in language, politics, anthropology and sociology. They will touch on issues such as language change, border politics and shifting identities in a changing Europe."
British-born Lesley is currently the Hans Kurath Collegiate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. She and James are best known for their pioneering research on working-class Belfast speech they carried out in the 1970s at the height of the Troubles.
Since then, they have lectured worldwide and published extensively on authority in language, dialects and language change and language and social networks.
The James Murray Brown series will open with a lecture by Lesley entitled, 'Language and the Public Interest'. The second will be given by James and is entitled 'Sociolinguists and Language Ideologies'. The series will culminate with a talk by Lesley, which poses the question 'Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration'. Was Dr Johnson right about linguistic change?'
Details about the content of each lecture can be found at www.abdn.ac.uk/~enl226/jmblectures.html.
The final lecture will follow on the heels of a nationwide conference on contact linguistics sponsored by the AHRB Research Institute of Irish and Scottish studies, and hosted by the Centre for Linguistic Research, in the School of Language and Literature. The event looks set to attract over 40 of the UK's finest linguists to the University of Aberdeen. Further information can be found at www.abdn.ac.uk/~enl226/symposium.html
Admission to all three lectures is by free ticket, available from the Office of External Affairs on (01224) 273874, or e-mail: events@abdn.ac.uk