AAB College’s Faculty of English organized an open lecture with distinguished professors from Ghent University, Belgium, Dr. Stef Slembrouck and Dr. Mieke Vandenbroucke, who spoke of “linguistic landscapes and multilingualism”.
During the opening of the lecture, Aida Alla, praised Professors Slembrouck and Vandenbroucke, and said that she hopes that students will gain new insights on a highly useful topic such as the interaction of society with language.
Dr. Stef Slembrouck, showed that language studies have been researched for many years; recently however, there have been significant developments and huge increases in multilingual research from the perspective of the linguistic landscape. The linguistic landscape of any urban region consists of the use of written language as seen in the inscriptions of official institutions (government billboards, street signs) and private ones (shop signs, billboards, etc.). The study of multilingualism through the phenomenon of linguistic landscapes has resulted in a number of major topics in the field of sociolinguistics, including how the city’s linguistic landscape reflects ethnic structures, and interethnic relations. He also added that language research contributes to the recognition of multilingualism in the world and helps avoid conflict.
Dr. Mieke Vandenbrouck added that the linguistic environment reflects the relations between different countries and that the regulation of the linguistic environment will remain an important issue not only in terms of the languages used but also because of moral, ethical, legal and ideological dimensions. Pro Dean, Uranela Demaj, who is studying Pristina’s language landscapes from various historical, social and political perspectives, briefly explained the importance of such studies in the context of Kosovo.
Students at the end of the lecture used the opportunity to ask lecturers on sociolinguistics issues. Present at this lecture were also a group of students from the Faculty of English Language from the AAB College campus in Gjakova and Ferizaj.
