The Second Conference on Language Contact in Asia and the Pacific (LCAP), organised by the University of Macau (UM) Department of Portuguese, was held recently. The conference aimed to promote collaboration between scholars in Macao and Malaysia on the one hand, and leaders of the Macanese community and language activists working on the preservation and documentation of Makista, on the other. The conference provided a platform for experts and scholars to exchange knowledge gained from multidisciplinary research on the different facets of language contact and multilingualism in Asia and the Pacific.

Prof Rui Martins, vice rector (research) of UM; and Prof Antony John Kunnan, one of the associate deans of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. They both stressed UM’s support of cross-institutional collaboration in all fields of research and knowledge.

Prof Peter Austin, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Prof Alan Baxter, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Saint Joseph; Prof Lisa Lim, head of the School of English, University of Hong Kong; and Prof Stefanie Pillai, dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya, delivered keynote speeches, titled ‘Layers of Language Contact and Language Change’, ‘Periphery in the Age of Reimagining: Vernaculars and Vitality in Urban and Online Communities’, ‘Minority Portuguese-lexified Creoles in Asia: Internal and External Challenges to the Survival’, and ‘Documenting Malacca Portuguese Creole (Cristang)’, respectively.

The conference covered several themes within the realm of contact linguistics, namely: descriptive studies of linguistic phenomena (syntax, lexicon, semantics and phonetics) resulting from language contact; language attitudes, beliefs and practices; documentation of endangered minority languages in urban settings; and linguistic diversity in urban settings. Presentations covered related linguistic phenomena at diverse geographical locations, spanning from Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia) to East Asia (Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan).

The conference also included presentations of 13 working papers by established researchers, as well as postgraduate students from UM and other universities in Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore. Many postgraduate students majoring in linguistics programme also attended the talks and presentations to learn more about the latest development in the field.  


Source: Faculty of Arts and Humanities
 

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