‘Que le français se nomme diversité…’
The annual conference of the Association for French Language Studies (AFLS) will be held at the University of Kent, Canterbury, from Wednesday 25 to Friday 27 June 2014.
At a time when many scholars are asking whether it is the relative homogeneity of European French, at least at the diatopic level, which renders it ‘exceptional’, this conference will explore ways in which diversity continues throughout the francophone world, or is emerging in new guises. How are differences at all levels, be they stylistic, sociolinguistic, syntactic, or semantic, manifested in the modern language, and what form did they take in the past? The conference will examine other ‘diversities’, too: for example, in theoretical descriptive frameworks as applied to French, in pedagogical methods and outcomes, and in the experience of French bilinguals.
The organising committee welcomes abstract submissions on these and any other areas of French linguistics and French language teaching in Higher Education.
Conference papers are welcome in either French or English, and abstracts should be written in the language of the presentation. Speakers will be given 30 minutes for oral papers (20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for questions).
Confirmed plenary speakers:
Françoise Gadet (Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)
Mari Jones (Cambridge)
Ros Mitchell (Southampton)
Contact information:
Please send all queries to: colloqueAFLS@kent.ac.uk
David Hornsby (D.C.Hornsby@kent.ac.uk)
Jonathan Kasstan (J.Kasstan@kent.ac.uk)
Address: Rutherford College
University of Kent
Canterbury CT2 7NX
Abstracts may be submitted via http://linguistlist.org/easyabs/AFLS2014 from 6 October 2013. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words (excluding title and references), and should be sent by the 24th January 2014. Abstracts should be anonymised and should state explicitly which field they subscribe to. Please contact the organising committee in relation to any questions that might arise. Responses to abstracts should be expected by mid March.