The Department of English Language & Linguistics is hosting a series of events under the title ‘The Genius of Language’, which explores the origins, diversity and creativity of language, as part of the nationwide ‘Being Human’ festival of the humanities. The events run between the 16 and 20 November 2014.
On Sunday 16 November, The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge will house an interactive exhibition, which explores questions such as ‘why is human language so special and how does it differ from the communication systems of other animals?’ and ‘how did language evolve in the human species?’ A competition for students to exhibit work in this exhibition under the title ‘The Origins of Language’ is currently running, please see the page here. A creative writing workshop on metaphors, led by Dr Jeremy Scott will take place at 3pm on the day.
In the subsequent week, there will be two film screenings in the Gulbenkian Cinema followed by Q&A sessions with experts from the Department of English Language & Linguistics. The Linguists (2008) will be screened on Tuesday 18 November, followed by Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? (2013) on Thursday 20 November. Both films will be shown at 6.30pm on their respective dates.
On Wednesday 19 November there will be a free public lecture entitled ‘Why Bilingualism Matters’ delivered by Professor Antonella Sorace (University of Edinburgh), a world-leading authority in the field of bilingual language development across the lifespan.
Full details of the events can be found on the Genius of Language web page: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/geniusoflanguage/