A Panel on “Language and Adaptability”

Memo

The Languages & Linguistics Research Unit of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) organizes A Panel on Language and Adaptability (Dimensions of Adaptability: Space, Time, Persons, Objects), 3-6 July, 2017 as part of the 10th Annual International Conference on Languages & Linguistics sponsored by the Athens Journal of Education.



When the talk is of ‘dimensions’ of adaptability, it is useful to think along a number of different lines. There is the time dimension: this is the adaptation that takes place when “the times move on, and we with them”; there are the places we live in, and visit, as partakers of certain local, national, or even international cultures; there are the various persons we come in contact with, and adapt ourselves to; there are all the objects we surround us with, where the computer looms large. When interacting via the electronic media, there is the ensuing potential or real damage to our physical and mental capabilities as a result of our adaptation. All these dimensions and modes of adaptation need to be critically examined from the point of ‘sense-making’: and how they relate to the other segments of our conscious lives. In particular, we need to address the question of how adaptability is reflected in our production, and conscious use, of ever more sophisticated devices. Of special linguistic and anthropological interest here are the discursive practices that co-occur with our use of objects, and the adaptability that emerges from such practices; the metadiscourses that regiment and frame the different dimensions of adaptability; the political/practical connotations and consequences of some of these practices; how adaptability to changed coordinates of space and time, to new persons, objects, conditions etc. either conflicts, or may coexist, with the needed stability in our lives and the uniqueness of our utterances.



Special arrangements will be made with a local hotel for a limited number of rooms at a special conference rate. In addition, a number of social events will be organized: A Greek night of entertainment with dinner, a special one-day cruise to selected Greek islands, an archaeological tour of Athens and a one-day visit to Delphi.