Abstract
Taking up UNESCO’s 2024 annual theme, ‘Learning for Lasting Peace’, this talk argues for the centrality of language learning for both individual and societal well-being. As a quarter of the world’s population (roughly two billion people) live in areas affected by intense conflict, alongside an alarming worldwide rise in discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and hate speech, this is both urgent work and a critical challenge.
In honor of Einar Haugen’s many contributions to linguistics, this talk (re)considers how some of Haugen’s core constructs and theoretical innovations – e.g., code-switching, schizoglossia, language ecology among others, and their scholarly development over time in the field –as well as broader lessons from his own life and work can help us rise to this challenge as both researchers and human citizens.
About Kendall A. King
Kendall A. King is Professor of Multilingual Education at the University of Minnesota , where she teaches and conducts research on language policy, sociolinguistics and child bilingualism and second language learning. She has published widely on the educational and familial practices impacting language use, language learning and social equity and she serves both locally and nationally as an advocate for multilingualism and multilingual education.
She has held faculty positions at the Center for Research on Bilingualism at Stockholm University, the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, and in Multilingual Multicultural Education at New York University. She has served as President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL), and was the 2024 winner of AAAL’s Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award.
The lecture is free and open for all.
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The Einar Haugen Lecture
On September 26, the European Day of Languages, MultiLing honors Einar Haugen with the annual Einar Haugen Lecture. This year's lecture will be held on September 26. Haugen was a Norwegian-American linguist and a Professor at Harvard University in the 1960-70s.
Haugen’s many influential works contributed to the then emerging field of sociolinguistics for which he is credited for having had an important impact, particularly in the domain of language policy. His pioneering work ‘The Norwegian Language in America: A Study in Bilingual Behavior’ (1953) is a landmark study in the field of bilingualism.