The European Conference on plurilingualism is organised by the European Observatory of Plurilingualism. It is an three-yearly event gathering public and private decision-makers, researchers and civil society actors, executives in economic, social, professional and educational fields and ordinary citizens, to ask clear questions about linguistic matters in political, cultural, economical and social fields. The first Conference was held in Paris on 24-25 October 2005, the second Conference in Berlin on 18-19 June 2009, the third in Rome on 11-13 October 2012, and the fourth in Brussels on 18-20 may 2016.
They are developed along four thematic axes, which are the thematic axes around which the OEP website is organized: national and international policies, education and research, culture and cultural industries, economy and social issues.
The conference aims to bring together all reflections and research themes on linguistic diversity and plurilingualism.
But the Audience is not only a scientific event. Their ambition is to act on policies based on research results. The field of linguistic diversity and plurilingualism has managed to establish itself as a field in its own right while spanning academic categories.
This action requires a broad practice of partnership, because the actors of plurilingualism today are hundreds in the academic and associative fields. In each country, for the organisation of the Assises, the OEP associates itself with a main partner having the capacity to ensure the numerous local missions which cannot be taken in charge by the OEP itself. Other national and international partners will also contribute to the success of the event.
The Assises therefore have a scientific, political and symbolic significance.
After Paris, Berlin, Rome and Brussels, the choice of Bucharest was a political and symbolic one. Romania's rich history has made it a crossroads of civilisations exposed to Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and European influences and its existence as an independent country is a miracle. Today's Romania, a member of the European Union since 2007, is a pillar of the French-speaking world, which is another multilingual and multicultural grouping that is asserting itself in the globalised world.
Bucharest was intended to host the 5th Conference, which was devoted to multilingualism in sustainable development, an unavoidable but hidden dimension.
In Cadiz, we are moving into a field that tends towards political philosophy. To speak of plurilingualism as a concept that navigates between diversity and universality, or rather that includes both, is really to put ourselves at the heart of the most current debates that have agitated our societies in recent years.
We are therefore shifting our point of view in relation to the central issues that are always present, as the diversity of languages and their exchanges cross the entire history of humanity. We are simply updating them.
To find out more about the theme, please read the call for papers on the dedicated website https://assises.observatoireplurilinguisme.eu
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