1.   ARGUMENTS

• Educational Line
• Economical Line
• Political Line
• Cultural Line

2. PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS

• Place and date
• Application
• Linguistic Regulations
• Oral Presentations
• Key dates
• Registration Fees
• Costs born by EOP

1. ARGUMENTS

Plurilingualism does not mean the disappearance of borders, whether they are physical, political, religious, intellectual, artistic or any others. Such as a door, the border can be opened or closed; it is a marker of identity and of differentiation, but at the same time, it is a condition for a real and authentic exchange. Whatever the border, plurilingualism transforms them as areas of exchanges, enrichment and creativity, a creativity nurtured by an assumed and recognized otherness.

1. EDUCATION – The plurilingual necessity in education: from the youngest age to higher-level education.

The resolution of November 23^rd, 2008 of the Council for Education, Culture and Youth reminded the aim that the Europeans of tomorrow should master at least two foreign languages in addition of their mother tongue, and set the principle of diversification of the linguistic offer from a very young age.

Four years after this resolution passed unanimously, where do we stand as far the general level in languages and the diversification in language teaching from a very young age are concerned?

Where do we stand when the various European education system regarding foreign languages are compared?

To reach the aim of at least two languages in addition of the mother tongue, the strategies are certainly numerous and have to take into account the specificities of the education system.

Which strategies have been implemented and which innovating strategies can we suggest?

How are the intra-European population circulation and the circulation of people between Europe and the rest of the world taken into account and do we manage the separation between mother tongue and education tongue?

The teaching of foreign languages is not unconnected to the other main teachings, in particular when it is the language of the host country. What is the relation between the acquisition of reading (in which a good number of the children have difficulties) and the development of foreign languages?

Should the foreign languages teaching at the university be a follow-up of the teaching of languages in secondary education?

So many questions, presented as examples, which will have to be tackled.

The 3^rd Conference will be less a place where pedagogical methods will be compared, than a place where trends and key factors will be identified allowing to find out innovating strategies to implement in order to reach the aim of 1+2 (or more), strategies which will be adopted, strategies which will have to be presented and defended.

Key words: mother tongue, teaching language, early learning, language awareness, bilingual classes, EMILE classes, international sections, interunderstanting, teaching in English, bilingual or trilingual teachings, innovation, strategies, school success

2. ECONOMY

Globalisation over the last decades has been imprinted by the huge growth of English in the most dynamic sectors in the Western societies, including research and big international companies, in particular finances, computer science and design.

This movement happened on a background of a technological, ideological, socio-economic-cultural and political transformation in big scale:

- Technologically speaking, the numerical revolution led to a new cycle of industrial revolution

- Ideologically speaking, neo- or ultra- liberalism, a reductive form of liberalism became vital, and we can now feel its limits

- A growing economism is asserting itself when the very foundations of the growth are questionable and questioned.

- An explosion of inequalities led to some sort of class change in the middle social classes

- Finally, according some, an economical oligarchy is taking over the political power.

In an official and underground manner, the market ideology would like to be a substitute for the political democracy, opposing itself to other deep trends of modern societies.

These developments, which are not without consequences on the linguistic level, affect research and higher education.

Would the competitive logic into which the universities are led, not risk putting them off their first mission of research, of elaboration of knowledge and thinking, of raising the level of education of the people and local development? Can the universities be considered as businesses?

The question of the place and future of the Humanities/Arts, which concentrate most of the interpretative and critical abilities in our societies, is clearly asked.

Over the last ten years, and as far as companies are concerned, many studies have shown many diversified attitudes in the facts, and sometimes major discrepancies between the official politics and the actual behaviours.

On the other hand, cultural and linguistic diversity, far from acting as a brake upon development, is more and more seen as a favourable resource to creativity and competitiveness. The context of globalisation obviously reinforces this observation. This is leading to consider that cultural and linguistic diversity, above their intrinsic social value, should become one the dimensions of management.

How can we assess the economical impact and profitability of plurilingualism on the short, middle and long courses? We have to define programs of research and experimental protocols.

Key words: knowledge society, interpretation culture, Humanities, scientific publications, scientific editions, free access and open science, international classification of the universities, classification of scientific magazines, English, bilingual and trilingual teachings, Bologna process, lingua franca, languages and sciences, understanding, negotiations, intercultural management, interpretation, linguistic abilities, linguistic potential, linguistic ergonomics, terminology, etc. ,

3. POLITICS

The future of languages cannot abstract itself from a prospective and geopolitical vision.

If it is true that the stake of languages is linked to the power stakes, and if unification and dispersion are two antagonistic and non-dissociable movements, the decline of English is unavoidable and the future is multi- and pluri- lingual at a centuries level.

The relationship between the political power and the linguistic expansion is complex and non-unconditional. The case of the present English is certainly specific. Its extension since the fifties has been a tool for power in the East-West confrontation, which has been largely cultural and ideological. In this framework, the linguistic extension does not accompany the power but becomes one of its tools.

The place of English today has not historical equivalent, whether it is a lingua franca phenomenon, a vernacular language, or the keeping of Latin in the Middle-Ages.

Moreover the technological context of the 21^st century has as a consequence that all the economical, social, cultural, and intellectual sectors are affected. This explains the feeling that all the languages (and not just the rare languages and the languages which are said to be in danger) seem threaten today.

Demography is obviously a very powerful factor and its effects are multiplied when associated to education, culture and development. For example, demographically speaking, Africa is the continent having the biggest demographic growth which potentially favours English and French which are the two international languages spoken in Africa.

To the trends for uniformity through technology, we can confront the need for differentiation and identity which express themselves through culture and language. And with that view, national language, but also regional and minority languages can stand up.

Migrations duplicate the cartography of poverty in the world and modify the host countries from the inside. They are for the latter both a source of infusion of new blood and of tension locally speaking. So the politics of the host countries has to be in favour or against plurilingualism. Beyond the States and international agreements, cities and big urban areas are both gathering places and strategic places in the migratory phenomenon.

The distribution of economical, political, cultural and media powers in which institutions are keeping in line with is one of the deciding parameters. When in fact, the distribution of powers is in the process of being re-engineered.

If languages, as identity markers, can be the source of conflicts, plurilingualism is itself fundamentally a peace factor. Plurilingualism as peace factor, what makes it completely different from multilingualism is a dimension which will have to be taken into account.

Key words: demography, education, migration, lingua franca, vehicular languages, differentiation, identity, etc.

4. CULTURE – The circulation of knowledge, ideas and imaginaries

Besides the safeguard of identities, without identitarism, besides the safeguard of languages as an expression of diversity, plurilingualism has the vocation to facilitate the recognition of the other, to favour the cultural as much as the commercial exchange. In this manner, translation is a non-dissociable addition to plurilingualism.

The safeguard of diversity and the exchange of the knowledge of languages through mutual-intelligibility, through translation and interpretation, are the foremost conditions of the intellectual and cultural fruitfulness and of creativity.

Technological, economical, juridical and political contexts are the deciding factors for it. Cinema, cultural industries, edition under all its forms, the role of migration, international conferences, Internet, etc. are at the heart of the subject.

Completely new situation, with the Web: hundred of thousands of people have free access to a plurilingual space. Most certainly, the worst can be found besides the best, but the Web is already one of the carriers of plurilingualism, through the many resources that can be found from the dictionaries to translation memories and aligned corpuses.

All the commercial websites and NGO of importance are plurilingual. The search for plurilingual information is obviously a field with a future.

If ontologies are presenting themselves as interlanguage, social networks are multilingual: how can you promote a quality plurilingualism?

Key words: translation, interpretation, diversity of cultural expressions, creativity, creative industries, imaginary, knowledge society, culture of interpretation, circulation of knowledge, of ideas and imaginaries, numerical multilingual corpuses, free access and open science, conceptual analysis, terminologies, transculturality, transdiciplinarity, migration, edition, cinema, audiovisual, songs, etc.

2. PRATICAL ARRANGEMENTS

1. Place and date

The Conference will be held at the Representation of the European Commission in Rome, Via quattro Novembre, 149-00187 Roma, on the 10^th, 11^th and 12^th of October 2012.

2. Application

Form: A summary of one page with a bibliography will be asked first on the subscription form attached.

This form will be submitted to a selection committee. The candidate will be informed of the decision taken.

3. Editorial Charter:

The aim of the Conference is the apprehension of concrete problems and the search for feasible solutions to answer them. The presentation will be presented in an argumentative manner and will include an analysis of the situation, a presentation of the problematic, if possible supported by experiences and precise cases, and concrete proposals to help nurture a platform on plurilingualism.

The accepted presentations will have to give a complete text of 6 pages long, around 18,000 characters maximum, spaces included, summaries and bibliographies included, according the following format aimed at the paper or electronic publication:

Text format: A4 paper, Times New Roman 10, lateral margins: 4.25; top margin: 5; bottom margin: 4.7; file format: .doc or .odt AND .pdf (there is a necessity to get the original non-modifiable text)

The text will be accompanied by a 15 lines summary in three languages.

Style sheet language or structured document: the style sheet or structured document (file in .dot or .ott) enclosed is readily usable. It is also downloadable with an example on the website of the EOP in the menu Conference, in file format .dot and/or .doc. It is the framework under which the whole text will have to be presented. All word processing compatible with Word is also usable.

Notes at the end of the article:

The notes will have to be placed at the end of the article, and not at the end of the pages. When they are bibliographical notes, the official norms will have to be followed.

4. Linguistic Regulations

• oral presentations

The linguistic regulation is as follows:

The oral presentation will have to be given in one of the official languages of the Conference: English, French, German and Italian. As for the interpretation regulation, it is planned is to have an interpretation in each of these official languages.

Whatever the language used, communications accompanied by a video-projection presentation will have to be done in another language than the language used orally and chosen among the four languages accepted for oral presentations.

• Publication

The language for the main written paper is chosen by the speaker. Summaries for publication will be 15 lines maximum and handed at the same time than the entire text and translated in at least two languages among the five following ones: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

5. Oral presentations

The time given for oral presentations is strictly limited to 7 minutes.

The entire texts being published before the event, the oral communication must not be the reading of the written paper. On the contrary, the most significant elements will have to be extracted.

All overrun of time would infringe on the time kept for questions from the audience, there is a need to keep to this strict discipline on which the moderator will keep an eye.

Application form: here enclosed to fill in and send back as attachment by email at:

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6. Key Dates 

1. Deadline for the application form: 30^th of November 2011
2. Announcement of the selection result for the presentations: 1^st of March 2012
3. Deadline for the sending of the entire text and translated summary: 1^st of June 2012.

7. Registration Fees

130 euros per person (30 € for the students) to be paid the following month after the announcement of the selection results:

1. With a cheque at the order of OEP
2. By bank transfer to the EOP (IBAN : FR42 2004 1000 0157 5110 3E02 094; BIC : PSSTFRPPPAR)
3. By secured payment via Paypal

For more information, visit our website

8. Costs born by EOP

The EOP will look after of coffee breaks and the three lunches on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and of the Acts of the Conference.

For a presentation of the EOP, read on the website of the EOP Who are we? and the project