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The Michel Blanc Lecture in Applied Linguistics 2019: Prof Lourdes Ortega

When: —
Venue: Senate House

No booking required

Programme

5.30pm: Registration starts
6.00pm: Welcome by Dr Bojana Petric
6.15pm: Remembering Michel Blanc - a panel chaired by Professor Penelope Gardner-Chloros
6.30pm: Professor Lourdes Ortega
8.00pm: Wine reception

From individual differences to vulnerability and privilege in multilingualism: A new research agenda?

Second language acquisition and bilingualism researchers working on individual differences have focused on understanding the drives, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors of adults learning new languages (Dewaele, 2013; Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015). But multilingual learning can be lived harmoniously by some and conflictively by others (De Houwer, 2015), as a privilege by some and as a vulnerability by others (Piller, 2016). Social contexts are not deterministic in predicting harmonious or conflictive language learning, as each individual trajectory, and each combination of privilege and oppression encountered along the way, will reflect some individual life project that gave meaning to and structured the learning (Norton & De Costa, 2918). But multilingualism is also shaped by complex and difficult relationships with globalization and poverty, and these and other factors do stack the deck against language learners who are members of minoritized groups in their given society (Ortega, 2019). Can research into individual differences in language learning offer new insights into these contemporary issues? Lourdes Ortega examines constructs from the study of psychology, in general, and the psychology of language learning, in particular, in search for promising directions that may help shed new light into questions of vulnerability and privilege in language learning, ultimately illuminating the link between multilingualism and social justice.

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