Setting a direction for this new group
Dear Madalena,
Thanks for initiating your new group page for language and linguistics. We can discuss this over time, but first of all, please note that it is not the aim of our network to create groups that are primarily for discussion - such groups, networks, email lists and so on are ubiquitous and compete with each other for attention on the internet.
To distinguish groups here at the Research Cooperative, we are focusing on the communication of research, in any field, and for any purpose (from popular to academic and technical).
For example, rather than opening a discussion here on multilinguism per se, you could open a discussion of how ideas and research on multilingualism are communicated in different language groups or different countries: What publishers and what institutions are involved, in different contexts? Who are the key authors? Who has published them?
Best regards, Peter
Thank you for this statement of purpose, Peter.
I created this group because I would be interested to know:
1. How linguistics is taught in different places around the world; whether the focus is on language, or on the linguistics of particular languages, as is the rule among teaching practices I'm familiar with in parts of Europe, Asia and the US;
2. How language is portrayed in publications around the world (academic publications, the media); whether the focus is on the languages, as in Western mainstream thought, or on their users.
I had not intended this group to discuss multilingualism in particular. I understood your mention of it to be just an example, but I would like to make this clear nevertheless. Multilingualism is another core interest of mine, for which I created, in October last year, a dedicated forum at my blog, Being Multilingual,
http://beingmultilingual.blogspot.com/
I must apologise for this belated introduction of mine to the group. The group was approved when I had initiated a 10-day trip during which I had only very limited access to the internet.
Many thanks to the new members for joining! I look forward to our discussions
Madalena