Preliminary program for symposium on language and identity

Issues of language and identity can make or break any kind of development project. They determine the degree of access to new information and influence a community’s desire to make any kind of change in the first place. Issues like these are to be addressed in the first Pike Center symposium which will be on the theme of Language and Identity in a Multilingual, Migrating World. Organized by Fellows Steve Quakenbush and Gary Simons, the symposium will take place as part of SIL's 7th International Language Assessment Conference to be held 9–16 May 2018 in Penang, Malaysia.  

The response to the Call for Papers was strong with 33 extended abstracts being submitted.  Available funding allows us to pay the expenses for 12 authors to present their work at the symposium. The following are the submissions that were selected by the organizing committee:

• Bagamba B. Araali, “Language shift and identity crisis among the northern Hema community of the Democratic Republic of Congo”
• Leoni Bouwer, “Surviving a century of erosive language policies in Madagascar: The importance of ethnolinguistic identity for sustainable intervention and development.”
• John Clifton, “Multilingualism with multiple identities”
• Marlute van Dam, “A case study looking at how language choice and language attitudes are instrumental in the identity formation of the Roma in Sadova.”
• David Eberhard, “Testing the Identity Construction Constraints: Towards an approach for assessing the factors that condition identity choices of minoritized language communities”
• Jaap Feenstra, “Identity and melting pots: Negotiating identity by resisting or pursuing accommodation”
• Maik Gibson, “New urban varieties in Africa and the identities that go with them”
• Sunny Hong, “Hidden language, hidden identity: Identity issues of refugees who are from minority language groups”
• M. Paul Lewis, “Remembering identity: The role of language”
• Daniel Paul, “The notion of ‘heart language’ in relation to sustainable identity”
• Sangsok Son, “Translanguaging as heartfelt linguistic performance in a multilingual world and its implications for education”
• Stephen Watters, “Linguistic identity and dialect diversity: a conundrum with regard to Magar Kham”