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VALS-ASLA Conference

The VALS-ASLA Conference 2024 took place on 12 and 13 February 2024 at the University of Bern. It was a success and we would like to thank the entire team for their commitment!

VALS-ASLA, the Swiss Association for Applied Linguistics, is a forum for the exchange of knowledge and information in the field of Applied Linguistics, an interdisciplinary field of linguistics in which language-related challenges and real-life problems are examined and results are applied in both practice and theory development.

The theme of the 2024 conference in Bern was Asymmetries and Inequalities in Language. With this theme, we sought to highlight the ways in which language and language issues reflect and reproduce social divisions, but also how linguistic analyses can help to uncover and sometimes even redress inequalities in society. We aimed to showcase research on language and social issues from a wide range of theoretical, methodological and geopolitical perspectives, and to encourage discussions on the role that asymmetries and inequalities play in our research.

Plenary lectures

Claudia Bianchi

Claudia Bianchi (Ph.D. at École Polytechnique, Paris) is Full Professor at the Philosophy Faculty of the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan. Her main research interests are in the field of Philosophy of Language, Pragmatics and Feminist Philosophy of Language. In particular, she works on hate speech, slurs and discursive injustice.

At present, she is the Coordinator of the Ph.D. in Philosophy, the Director of the research centre Gender (Interfaculty centre for gender studies) and of the Master in Communication of Science and Health, https://www.unisr.it/en/offerta-formativa/master/interfacolta/comunicazione-scienza-salute.

Latest authored work

Hate speech. Il lato oscuro del linguaggio, Roma-Bari, Laterza (2021).

Web page

https://www.unisr.it/en/docenti/b/bianchi-claudia-giovanna-daniela

Maria Candea

Professor Maria Candea is a sociolinguist and a sociophonetician at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris. Her work focuses on the perception of speech and on the description of the diversity of contemporary oral French. She is particularly interested in agentivity in pronunciation and phonostylistic performance.

Activity and published work

Maria Candea is a member of CLESTHIA laboratory and she cofounded the journal "GLAD! - Revue sur le langage, le genre, les sexualités". She is also co-author of several books for large popularization of the research in language sciences, including the essay written with Laélia Véron Le français est à nous, 2019.

 

Claire Kramsch

Claire Kramsch is Emerita Professor of German and Affilate Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught courses in German and in Applied Linguistics, and where she was the founding director of the Berkeley Language Center. Her areas of interest are applied linguistics, language learning and teaching, language and culture, and bi- and multilingualism.

Publications

Her many publications include Interaction et discours dans la classe de langue (Hatier, 1984), Context and Culture in Language Teaching (OUP, 1993), Language and Culture (OUP, 1998), The multilingual subject (OUP, 2009), The multilingual instructor (OUP, 2018 with Lihua Zhang), and Language as symbolic power (CUP, 2021). She is the past president of the American and the International Association of Applied Linguistics and the past editor of the international journal Applied Linguistics. She is currently the coeditor of two book series with Routledge and Cambridge University Press, and the editor of the L2 Journal.

Harshana Rambukwella

Harshana Rambukwella is a comparative literature and cultural studies scholar with an interest in the intersections between literature, history, aesthetics, and nationalism in South Asia. He is also a sociolinguist with interest in critical sociolinguistics and discourse analysis.

Publications

Harshana is the author of the Politics and Poetics of Authenticity (UCL Press 2018) and has published in journals such as boundary 2 and the Journal of Asian Studies and Interventions and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics and serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language.

Current Project

Harshana is currently working on a project on the 'cultural life of democracy,' looking at democracy in 'everyday life' as expressed in cultural and aesthetic artifacts. Harshana is currently Visiting Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Venue

VALS-ASLA 2024 will be held in the Unitobler building of the University of Bern (building #36 on the map attached here).

University of Bern's Unitobler Campus

University of Bern's Unitobler Campus is a 15-20 minute walk (uphill) or a short bus ride  from the Bern central rail station. The campus is situated in the vibrant Länggasse district of the city of Bern and is in close proximity to several other buildings of the university. To get to Unitobler by bus, use line 20 in the direction of Länggasse (named as such on the displays of the buses) and exit at the stop Mittelstrasse. The University building is a 2 minute walk from the bus stop in the direction of traffic.

Getting to Bern

Airports

The closest airports to Bern are: EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg (80 minutes by train and bus), Zürich Airport (75 minutes by direct train) and Geneva Airport (90 minutes by direct train). During a weekday twice-hourly trains connect the respective airports to the city of Bern. More information on train schedules may be found on the SBB website.

Train station

Bern central station (English for Bern Hauptbahnhof) is the closest stop to the conference venue.

Getting around Bern

Commuters in Bern use one of the two Apps when planning to commute via public transport. The SBB App will allow you to plan travel and purchase tickets for within Bern and the rest of Switzerland (including international connections between Switzerland and neighbouring countries). The Libero App is for commuting and ticket purchase only within Bern, including bicycle rentals.

Note that if you are staying in a hotel in Bern, you will normally be given a travel pass for use on all public transport in the city of Bern for the duration of your stay (included in the price of your hotel room).

A map of the city and other relevant details for your stay may be found here.