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Sub-Projects – Theme 3 – Socio-cultural integration

What has been done so far?

The project has officially started work on 13 January 2005 with a two-day kick-off meeting that gave the participants from South Tyrol, Strasbourg, Lublin, Basle, Navarre and from Delta-Rhodopi the opportunity to exchange information on the linguistic situation of each region (agenda). The aim is to specify common objectives and to plan the working phases.

The following work process is mainly characterised by the elaboration of regional reports. On the basis of historical, legal and social characteristics the linguistic situation in each region is presented in the reports, including information about the related language policy, the educational system and the role of languages in the cross-border co-operation.

Moreover, most of the reports include a SWOT-analysis demonstrating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for different languages in the relevant regions and reflecting the needs for action.

This is obvious for example in case of the minority group of Pomaks living in the region of East Macedonia-Thrace and the necessity of supporting their situation is not solely underlined in the respective regional report, but also in the presentation of the host region during the 2nd workshop of the SWG „Language Bridges“ that took place on 21 – 24 July 2005 in Thassos. This meeting was organised by the working group “Motivation and language learning”, one of four working groups within the SWG dealing with the aforementioned core topics of the sub-project.

A further important work package is the elaboration of a study examining the motivation for language learning. A preparatory meeting took place on 3 – 5 November 2005 in Strasbourg, where alongside the interview methods the linguistic situation in Alsace was discussed.

In workshops and debates the project partners presented very different linguistic situations in their regions but sharing the common aim of the improvement of awareness on language learning within the population they were given the opportunity to exchange experiences, to analyse the transferability of certain solutions and to jointly work out solutions.

More information about the project is also available on the EURAC's website (http://www.eurac.edu) or you can get in contact with the Lead Participant directly:
Mathias Stuflesser: Mathias.Stuflesser@eurac.edu
Andrea Abel: Andrea.Abel@eurac.edu

Final Conference
The final Conference “Multilingualism across Europe: findings, needs, best practices” takes place on 24 – 26 August 2006 at the European Academy Bozen/Bolzano, Italy (see also: http://www.eurac.edu/Org/LanguageLaw/Multilingualism/Projects/tag06_1.profil.htm)