| Azaraimy HH |
UNIVERSITI Brunei Darussalam (UBD) through its Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) played host to the 18th English in Southeast Asia (ESEA) Conference, which was themed ‘Interactions of English and Other Languages in Southeast Asia’.
UBD stated that the conference, which had its official opening yesterday, discussed the “multi-layered interactions between the national, regional and local languages of Southeast Asia and English, for individual users as well as for national and international communities”.
UBD also informed that the ESEA Conference, which started in 1996, aims to achieve a balance between English Language learning issues, aspects of language policy and planning, literature in English across Southeast Asia, English linguistics as well as English in relation to the other languages in the Southeast Asian region.
During the two-day programme, keynote presentations will be made by linguistic experts in the region, including Professor Adam Jaworski (from the University of Hong Kong), who is also an Eminent Visiting Professor at FASS; Professor Andy Kirkpatrick (Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia), and Professor David Deterding (UBD).
Associate Professor Dr Azman bin Ahmad, the Acting Vice-Chancellor of UBD, declares open the 18th English in Southeast Asia Conference
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the event’s chairperson, Dr Siti Norkhalbi binti Haji Wahsalfelah, giving her speech
Academicians and educators during the programme yesterday. – PHOTOS: AZARAIMY HH
Additionally, two special workshop sessions and over 50 parallel papers have been scheduled for the event.
Alongside the papers by international experts, many presentations will be made by younger scholars, including several interesting papers by the young lecturers and graduate students at UBD, who will present the results of their PhD and other researches.
UBD previously hosted the 10th ESEA Conference in 2005, which led to the publication of the highly cited volume, ‘English in Southeast Asia: Varieties, Literacies and Literatures’, published in 2007 and co-edited by DL
Prescott, TW Kirkpatrick, IP Martin and Azirah Hashim.
Dr Siti Norkhalbi binti Haji Wahsalfelah, the Dean of FASS and the conference’s chairperson, also mentioned that the conference is being held in conjunction with UBD’s 30th anniversary this year.
She added that Southeast Asia is undergoing rapid economic, social and cultural changes, as it faces the challenges of the 21st century, especially with on-going efforts to integrate the economics of Asean and thereby facilities for greater regional investments and developments.
She believes that while this is taking place, the use of English is also “inevitably undergoing substantial shifts, reflecting regional trends as more and more people become proficient in the language, and their usage patterns change owing to increased interconnectivity offered by the Internet”.
“This region had indeed become a fertile ground for research work on the ways that English form and its usage is changing, on how English is being used in various domains on discourse and to the development in English teaching materials and methods that not only accurately reflect on current realities, but also how they are adapted to meet the needs of the modern world,” she further explained.
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