Networking meeting for interpreters, translators, and others interested in and involved with languages

AUSIT is having a networking meeting for interpreters, translators, all those interested in and involved with languages. 

• WHEN?     2pm Saturday 30 May, 2015
• WHERE?   Café at  National Museum of Australia, 1 Lawson Crescent, Acton ACT

No cost involved. Except for your coffee/tea or whatever you consume.  Come and meet practising interpreters/translators willing to share their experiences.  Bring your queries and anecdotes to make the meeting enriched and interesting.

For more information about AUSIT see http://www.ausit.org/

Free Public Seminar: Is bilingualism an advantage for cognitive control? Evidence from the Simon Task

• Tuesday 5 May 2015, 5pm to 6pm
• Al-Falasi lecture theatre, CAIS, 127, Ellery Crescent, ANU, Canberra 
• Speaker Célia Mendes PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Otago

Several studies indicate that being proficient in more than one language leads to positive cognitive gains in the form of attentional control and conflict monitoring. This talk investigates this through a study based on the Simon Task (Craft & Simon, 1970). Over 100 adults participated, 38 English monolingual speakers and 77 bilinguals whose native tongue was not English. Results did not support a bilingual advantage (measured by a reduced susceptibility to the conflict effect in response times and in error rates). Click HERE for more details of the talk.

This free public seminar is part of the ANU Language Teaching Forum, which usually holds talks on the fourth Monday of the month, from 4.15pm – 5.15 pm. The forum is jointly coordinated by the ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences (CASS) and the College of Asia & the Pacific (CAP). For more information about the Language Teaching Forum contact: 

• Dr Louise Jansen (School of Literature, Languages & Linguistics, CASS) Louise.Jansen@anu.edu.au
• Dr Duck-Young Lee (School of Culture, History & Language, CAP) duck-young.lee@anu.edu.au) 
• Ms France Meyer (Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies, CASS) france.meyer@anu.edu.au) 

Canberra Region Languages Forum Update April 2015

Some information about language-related activities and issues. Please feel free to pass on to colleagues and friends who may be interested.

CLICK HERE for more information about the following

• Events related to ‘Global Languages’, the theme of the ANU Humanities Research Centre for 2015: Tuesday Afternoon Seminar program and Global English, Minimal English Symposium, 
• Inaugural Book Launch of the French Research Cluster, Wednesday 29 April, 5.30-6.30pm
• Language learning classes and other resources in the ACT region 
• Literary events at the National Library of Australia: Meet Graeme Simsion and Hack Attack
• Events organised by the Lu Rees Archives of Australian Children’s Literature Inc: ‘Hippopotomusing’ with Hazel Edwards and Colin Thiele Talk and Festival
• Some news items and articles about languages and language learning 

How to represent spoken language in written form: Analysing conversational data from James Joyce to Southern Papua New Guinea

• 4pm-5.30pm, Tuesday 24 March 2015
• HRC Conference Room, Top Floor, AD Hope Building ANU
• Professor Volker Gast, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany

This talk will deal with the variation of human language along two dimensions, the medium (spoken vs. written) and the level of distance or proximity between the interlocutors (from local to global). The main focus of the talk will be on matters of methodology, i.e. the question of how the type of register variation in question can be systematically investigated and, ideally, measured.

Free and open to the public

For a list of upcoming Tuesday HRC seminars – all with a focus on some aspect of language in first semester 2015, CLICK HERE

Canberra Region Languages Forum Update March 2015

The March 2015 Forum Update for 2015 contains information about the following:   

• Growing Professionally: Mini-conference organised by the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators ACT. Saturday, 21 March 2015, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm, CIT Bruce Campus
• Raising children in more than one language, free seminar and discussion session, Sunday 22 March 2015, 1.30pm-4.30pm, JG Crawford Building, ANU
• Public Seminar: Hindi Express - Phones, tablets and notebooks in class, Monday 23 March 2015, 4.15 – 5.15 pm, Baldessin Precinct Building, ANU
• How to find out more about the monthly seminars of the ANU Language Teaching Forum
• Other Language News from the ANU: Javanese on YouTube, Portuguese now available at first and second year level, What’s happening at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
• International Mother Language Day report and more about the group that coordinates the annual celebration in the ACT
• ACT Bilingual Education Alliance, information for families raising children in more than one language, educators and researchers with an interest in bilingual programs, and adults learning languages in the ACT region, including English
• Some more news items and articles about Languages.

CLICK HERE for more details

Learn Italian with the Dante Alighieri Society of Canberra

The Dante Alighieri Society of Canberra (DAS) is a non-profit organisation promoting Italian language and culture - http://danteact.org.au/

• Term 1 classes for 2015 begin on Tuesday 17 February
• For full details see  http://danteact.org.au/language/formal-courses/

How the language we speak guides the way we listen

The ARC Centre of excellence for the Dynamics of Language at the Australian National University invites you to this talk:   

• Wednesday, 4 February 2015 from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM (AEDT)
• Lotus Hall, The Australian Centre on China in the World, Building 188, Fellows Lane ANU

Two people who hear exactly the same speech sounds will process them differently depending on what their own native language prepares them to expect.

Professor Anne Cutler from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamic of Language explains how our native languages train us to listen in particular ways and how we ignore or respond to specific speech cues. 

This research is allowing us to predict problems as well as opportunities in second-language acquisition.