Understanding language in the 21st century

What is it like growing up multilingual, with your life spanning multiple languages and cultures? What do young people wish grown-ups knew about their lives? This talk will explore a study with two strands, one global, one local to Sheffield, both focused on capturing the voices and experiences of young people today.

Is language learning in schools ‘in crisis’, as we often read in the media and in the academic literature? In this talk we will explore the state of language learning and curriculum policy, what ‘crisis’ really means, and whether making school subjects optional can really create a crisis. If you bring a phone, you will get to share your views, experiences and policy ideas through interactive polls, and together we might just ‘solve’ the ‘crisis’ once and for all.

We often talk about being monolingual, being bilingual and being multilingual. It's very easy and convenient to categorise people in this way in terms of what languages they speak. However, recent ways of thinking about languages from the perspective of the individual speaker challenge accepted ideas about how we perceive ourselves and our language abilities. Dr Jessica Bradley explores some of these theories and ideas, and ask, does monolingualism actually exist?