https://www.um.edu.mt/events/bilingualism2019
Prof. Adrian Grima of the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta will be reading a paper on “The Audacity of Juann Mamo and Colonial Language Politics” at the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism hosted by the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta at the Valletta Campus in St Paul Street, Valletta on 25-27 March 2019. The conference conveneris Prof. Lydia Sciriha of the Department of English.
The paper is part of Bilingualism and Literature parallel session 2 on Monday 25 March from 2:30pm to 4:30pm. The other papers in this panel are
- Michele Russo, “Bilingualism in Berberova’s short stories and autobiography – allusions to Nabokov’s transcultural influence”
- Olga Anokhina, “Multilingualism and Literature: The case of multilingual writers’ drafts”
- Gabriela Scipnic, “Bilingualism and true bilingualism: a rhetorical perspective”
This is the abstract of Adrian Grima’s paper on “The Audacity of Juann Mamo and Colonial Language Politics“:
Juann Mamo (1886-1941) wrote his irreverent novel Ulied in-Nanna Venut fl-Amerka (1930-31) (Nanna Venut’s Children in America) at a time when the Maltese reading public, about 20% of the population, was acutely aware of the power politics related to language in colonial Malta. The Maltese-language writers were trying establish the vernacular as the primary language of literary expression despite the fact that written Maltese was still struggling to establish itself and Italian language and culture enjoyed pride of place among the local educated elite. Mamo’s unconventional novel was written against the unwelcoming background of a fledgling literature in the vernacular that sought to gain the respect of an old Italophile cultural elite by espousing the nationalist ideals of Romanticism and a new class of largely Anglophile Reformist writers. Ironically, the readership that Mamo addressed was precisely that local Italianate elite that he criticized mercilessly in his largely Modernist novel.
2nd International Conference on Bilingualism
Valletta Campus, University of Malta, 25-27 March 2019
The Organising Committee is pleased to invite you to the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism to be held between 25 and 27 March 2019 in the historic and cultural city of Valletta on the Mediterranean Island of Malta. The conference aims to have an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas with researchers and students from different linguistic backgrounds.
The keynote speakers are Professor Jasone Cenoz, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU; Professor Anne Pauwels, SOAS, University of London; Professor Durk Gorter, University of the Basque Country, UVP/EHU, IKERBASQUE – Basque Foundation for Science; and Professor David Lasagabaster, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU.
The papers cover a wide range of topics including:
- Theoretical approaches to Bilingualism
- Bilingualism and the Social Media
- Bilingualism and the Linguistic Landscape
- Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Themes in Education
- Language Policy and Language Management in the Educational Domain
- Immersion Programmes
- Bilingualism and Language Attitudes
- Bilingualism and Gender
- Varieties of English
- Code-switching
- Bilingualism and Identity
- Bilingualism and Biculturalism
- Child Bilingual Development
- Third language acquisition and Trilingualism
- Bilingualism and Translation
- Bilingualism and Literature
- Bilingualism and Philosophy
- Bilingualism and Cultural Studies
- Multilingualism and Society
Organising Committee University of Malta: Professor Lydia Sciriha, Convener; Dr Romina Frendo; Dr Elton Stivala; Ms Marie Waldron; and Ms Bernice Camilleri.
adriangrima.org 