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‘Most people in the world are multilingual, and everybody could be; no one is rigorously excluded from another's language community except through lack of time and effort. Different languages protect and nourish the growth of different cultures, where different pathways of human knowledge can be discovered. They certainly make life richer for those who know more than one of them.’

— Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, by Nicholas Ostler.

The Research Cluster of Linguistics and Language Education, under leadership of Dr. Joanna Merkel (Modern Languages) and Dr. Xinxin Fang (International Office, Centre for Chinese Studies) is a group of passionate language educators from Chinese, French, German, Spanish and other languages program as well as scholars and students who are interested in exploring the empire of languages. Please join us to the official launch and first presentation on Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Location: A205 – Time: 12 – 1pm, Tuesday, December 6, 2016

 

Presenter: Dr. Conrad Van Dyk. Dr. Van Dyk is an Associate Professor of English at Concordia University of Edmonton. His research spans a number of fields, including medieval studies and digital humanities. His book John Gower and the Limits of the Law (2013) deals with the intersection of law and literature in the fourteenth century, particularly in the works of the poet John Gower. In addition to writing articles, he is also a major contributor to the Online Gower Bibliography. At present he has shifted his focus to the teaching of writing and is working on creating an open access writing guide for students. The Nature of Writing is still under construction, but should be ready for use across the curriculum by the fall of 2017.  In its final form it will combine prose and video instruction in all aspects of academic writing, as well as numerous practice exercises at various levels of difficulty. 

 

 

***Food and drinks will be provided.***

 

Concordia University of Edmonton – Building Bridges