The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the period 2022-2032 as an international decade of indigenous languages in the hope of building a global community for the preservation, revitalisation, and support of indigenous languages worldwide, with UNESCO acting as the lead agency. UNESCO has offered the platform and believes that a remedy to language extinction is “language promotion, development, and preservation.
The University of South Africa (UNISA) through the School of Arts in the College of Human Science, is proud to be hosting a conference on the theme, “development, promotion, and preservation of languages through art, culture, music, and heritage”. UNISA attracts a third of all higher education students in South Africa. Through various colleges and affiliates, UNISA has over 400,000 students, including international students from 130 countries worldwide, thus making it one of the world's mega universities, and the only such university in Africa. UNISA has hosted many academic conferences.
National and international speakers will address problems and solutions relating to the theme of the conference and will answer questions related to the sub-themes. We need to interrogate how we can localise the International Decade of Indigenous Languages in Africa in general and South Africa in particular, to the benefit of the continent and country, as well as why we need a presence of our languages in the digital space. This is a unique opportunity to exchange experience in an African context with an international audience.
Papers, panel discussions, lightning talks and posters on topics that address the theme and subthemes of the conference will be considered for inclusion in the conference programme. Accepted papers will be considered for publication in the conference proceedings, provided the authors submit full papers. A double-blind peer review process will be followed to ensure quality based on originality, technical and/or research depth, accuracy, and relevance to the conference theme and sub-themes.
Last modified: 2023/08/07