LAMiNATE Newsletter 2021.1
Welcome!
It is with great pleasure that we present the first newsletter of the research platform LAMiNATE (Language Acquisition, Multilingualism, and Teaching) recently established at Lund University and funded by the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology (JFHT).
We would like to thank the members for supporting the application to the JFHT. You played an important role in making it a successful application.
In this first issue, we present the aims and goals of the platform, what has been achieved so far, the LAMiNATE Talks series and the plan for the future of the platform. You will also find out what it means to be a member. Future newsletters will inform you about activities organized by LAMiNATE, news about its members, such as PhD defences, recent publications, media appearances, and upcoming events.
Enjoy!
Marianne Gullberg & Jonas Granfeldt (Platform leaders)
Maria Graziano & Frida Splendido (Platform coordinators)
Contents
- What is LAMiNATE?
- LAMiNATE So Far
- LAMiNATE Talks
- Upcoming Events
- Being a LAMiNATE Member
- Recent Publications
- Contact
What is LAMiNATE?
LAMiNATE is a cross-disciplinary interdepartmental research platform dedicated to all areas of (multimodal)language acquisition, multilingualism, and language teaching/assessment. It is funded by the Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology at Lund University.
Lund University has long hosted many prominent scholars in these fields. For example, in the early 1980s, Ragnhild Söderberg (Linguistics) became Sweden’s first professor of child language, and in 1999 Sven Strömqvist was appointed professor of language acquisition. In 1995, a research seminar was formed – Centrum för forskning om språkinlärning och undervisning (CinLund) – by professors Suzanne Schlyter(Romance languages) and Gisela Håkansson (Linguistics). A seminar focusing on research on language learning in a wide sense has remained active for the past 25 years although under different names (e.g. BAMSE, Language Acquisition Seminar, Language Learning seminar, etc).
LAMiNATE builds on this tradition with the aim to become a venue where researchers working on language learning, multilingualism, and language teaching/assessment can meet, strengthen collaborations, and develop additional lines of inquiry. In this spirit, the acronym LAMiNATE, which is also an actual word, expresses the idea of unifying the different dimensions (or layers) that constitute the study of how multiple languages are acquired, processed, and used. This vision is also represented in the LAMiNATE symbol where the superimposed layers represent these different lines of research.
LAMiNATE is guided by a team of two leaders (Gullberg and Granfeldt) and two coordinators (Graziano and Splendido).
Marianne Gullberg, professor of psycholinguistics and director of Lund University Humanities Lab. Gullberg studies acquisition and real time language use in adult L2 and multilingual speakers, targeting semantics, discourse, and gesture production and comprehension.
Jonas Granfeldt, professor of French linguistics. Granfeldt has a wide interest in different modes of language acquisition, including comparative work on early bilingualism, child and adult L2 acquisition with a focus on morphosyntax and lexicon, but he also works in educational linguistics focusing on modern languages and foreign language policy.
Maria Graziano is a researcher and educational developer at Lund University Humanities Lab. Graziano’s research targets first language acquisition from a multimodal perspective. She studies the development of speech and gesture in narrative discourse in children, and crosslinguistic differences in adult gestural behavior.
Frida Splendido is a senior lecturer of Swedish as a second and foreign language. Splendido studies phonetic-phonological aspects of child second language acquisition and bilingual first language acquisition.
LAMiNATE So Far
Since the start in January 2021, LAMiNATE has already made some progress. We have a website which displays our vision, strands of research, members, the LAMiNATE Talks series, other events, etc. This website is continuously updated.
LAMiNATE also has a Twitter account, where we post information about the LAMiNATE Talks series, members’ achievements, relevant news from other research centres. If you are a Twitter user, you can follow us here.
In addition, LAMiNATE has nominated a steering committee: Henrik Gyllstad, Senior Lecturer, English Studies; Kristina Hansson; Associate Professor, Logopedics; Roger Johansson, Researcher, Psychology; Victoria Johansson; Senior Lecturer, General Linguistics; Mikael Roll, Professor, Phonetics. The committee contributes to the strategic planning of the platform’s activities.
A key element is the LAMiNATE Talks series, which builds on the long-standing seminar series devoted to language acquisition. The Talk series has been off to a flying start in spring 2021 with a full programme and great turn-out, with some talks welcoming over 50 people in the audience. Read more about this below.
Finally, LAMiNATE is also listed in LUCRIS (Lund University Research Portal) under research platforms. This means that LAMiNATE members at Lund University link their research output and activities to the platform in LUCRIS (see more under "Being a Member" below). This is an important strategic move to build a community around the platform and promote all of our activities.
LAMiNATE talks
The LAMiNATE Talks series is organized every semester to promote lively and continuous discussion around the themes of (multimodal) language acquisition, multilingualism, and language teaching/assessment.
The talks take place every other Tuesday, between 15.15-16.30 CET and they are advertised on our webpage, through our mailing list, and on Twitter. In spring 2021, talks have been virtual events, with presentations given both by LAMiNATE members at Lund University and by international colleagues. The series has been successful: with an average of about 30 participants each seminar, we reached an all-time high of 61 attendees at the seminar held by prof. Li Wei.
Download the LAMiNATE Talks spring programme here.
Download the spring series' abstracts here.
Upcoming Events
The LAMiNATE Talks series continues in autumn 2021 online. In order to highlight and give voice to the several strands or layers of relevance, the talks in the autumn semester will be organized by thematic strands (i.e., 2 consecutive seminars around the same topic). You are welcome to suggest themes and speakers (including yourselves, of course).
LAMiNATE is also planning an academic conference towards the end of the autumn. More about this in the next issue.
In the more immediate future, LAMiNATE member Anders Agebjörn is defending his thesis "Learning of Definiteness by Belarusian Students of Swedish as a Foreign Language" on 21 May, 13.15–15.15. More info and Zoom-link here.
Being a LAMiNATE Member
As a LAMiNATE member you are part of a a vibrant research community where new collaborations can be established and old ones reinforced. All members are listed on our website (currently under “Strands” but shortly on the members' page under “People”). Being a LAMiNATE member means that you:
actively participate in our activities, such as the LAMiNATE Talks series and the upcoming conference,
you support and promote the platform, for example by using the LAMiNATE symbol (download here) on slides when presenting on topics relevant to LAMiNATE at conferences and outreach events,
you can invite colleagues/students to join the platform and the Talks series
you link your research output and activities to LAMiNATE in LUCRIS, when these are clearly related to the topics of language acquistion, multilingualsim and language teaching. LAMiNATE should automatically appear under "contributors and affiliations"; if not you can click on "add organisational unit". Do not forget to untick if a publication or activity is unrelated to LAMiNATE.
If you send us an e-mail about a new publication, LAMiNATE will promote your research through its channels (the website, Twitter, the newsletter). All members are included in the LAMiNATE mailing list and receive announcements and upcoming newsletters.
Recent Publications
Jonas Granfeldt, Susan Sayehli & Malin Ågren (2021) Trends in the study of Modern languages in Swedish lower secondary school (2000 – 2018) and the impact of grade point average enhancement credits, Education Inquiry, 12:2, 127-146, DOI: 10.1080/20004508.2020.1790099
Granfeldt, Jonas. "A history of sermons and carrots but no sticks" European Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 9, no. 1, 2021, pp. 137-157. https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2020-0022
Contact
If you have questions about LAMiNATE and our activities, you can contact us at the following email: laminate-contactmail.ht.luse.