The Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Letters
together with the UST Graduate School sponsored a special lecture
titled “Multilingualism Research: from attitudes to practices,” as part
of the professional development program for faculty members
under the English Department.
The resource speaker, Dr. Jenifer Loy Lising, a lecturer in the Department ofLinguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney Australia, convenes and
lectures units in Sociolinguistics and Second Language Teaching. She
is also the program convener for the department’s new postgraduate
program, Master of Accessible Communication (MAC), which
commences in 2018.
The study, as she discussed in her lecture, examined the use of
multiple languages such as English
Filipino, and other languages, in different contexts such as the home,
at the university, in social media, and in transactional settings. Findings of
Lising’s study suggest that the choice of languages across these contexts
is determined to a certain degree by the current institutional language
policies and different socio-cultural factors. The survey was participated
in by a group of 40 private university students.
The special lecture held on September 18, 2017 at the Thomas
Aquinas Research Complex (TARC), proceeded with an open forum.
Dr. Lourdes Bautista, one of the luminaries of Philippine linguistics
attended the lecture together with former colleagues of Dr. Lising.
Faculty members of the English Department and students from
the English Language Studies also participated in the activity.
