Dear LANGSCAPE Members,

Time passes quickly and a month has already passed since our meeting in Barcelona in October. It is more than time to update the entire LANGSCAPE community on the key issues that were discussed in Spain. In the following, you will find all relevant information.

1             Personnel

• Bettina Kaiser will succeed Claudia Schmidt in her position as coordination assistant.
• Katja Lochtman now co-chairs the research projects directorate together with Itesh Sachdev.

 

2            New Members since Brussels

An Vande Casteele (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Yasemin Bayyurt (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul)

Cor van der Meer (Fryske Academy, Ljouwert)

Frank Rabe (Universität Braunschweig)

Gabriele Budach (University of Luxembourg)

Heini-Marja Järvinen (University of Turku)

Jenny Jakisch (Universität Braunschweig)

David Gerlach (Philipps-Universität Marburg)

María González Davies (Blanquerna Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona)

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer (Universität Hamburg)

Sofia Stratilaki (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3)

Sumru Akcan (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul)

Lesley Harbon (University of Technology, Sydney)

Anka Bergmann (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

 

3            LANGSCAPE Projects

3.1         Research project: “Vitality of Urban Multilingualism” (VUM)

The research projects directorate will coordinate a collaborative research project called VUM. Research Questions of this project will be:

1. What is the VUM in LANGSCAPE partners cities/towns?
2. What are attitudes to multilingualism and plurilingualism in these places; How do VUM and attitudes to multilingualism relate?
3. Focus on Teacher Education – a qualitative study: How is VUM reflected in educational contexts through teachers attitudes, classroom practice and school policies?

Itesh Sachdev and Katja Lochtman will keep LANGSCAPE members informed on the progress of the project. Soon, more detailed information will be made available via the LANGSCAPE blog.

At the VUM Symposium in Berlin between 8^th and 9^th of July 2016, first results can be discussed among participants.

3.2         Book series: Research on Identity/Multilingualism/Plurilingualism (RIMP)

LANGSCAPE will establish a printed monolingual English book series as well as an online multilingual open access publication.

3.3         Visibility

A working group within LANGSCAPE will create an official, updated and redesigned website. The LANGSCAPE Coordination team will also finalise the new poster design together with the concept of the slogan. Results of both processes will be made available to the LANGSCAPE community early in the next year.

3.4         Doctoral Support

Doctoral seminars will be established as a regular forum for exchange preferably at the annual LANGSCAPE meetings.

 

4            Prospective Tasks

4.1         Next LANGSCAPE meeting and doctoral seminar 2016

Both will take place in Berlin between the 7^th and 9^th of July 2016.

4.2         Next LANGSCAPE meeting and doctoral seminar 2017

Members will need to determine the venue for the meeting and doctoral seminar in 2017.

 

Please, do not hesitate to contact us for any further questions or comments at langscape@hu-berlin.de.

 

Kind regards from your co-ordination team,

Bettina Kaiser, Stephan Breidbach und Lutz Küster