Central to our navigation of power relations, our negotiation of identities and our understanding of cultures is language. The trajectory of research involving these areas largely emanate from a language outlook. 

However, prevalent analytical paradigms still approach the study of language from or in relation to a center—a perspective that has become increasingly untenable as discourses become more nuanced.

Evaluation of current language programs, for instance, point to implementation problems that stem from policies that overlook plurilingual and multi-ethnic contexts. At the risk of under-informing our language policies pertaining to education and rights protection, research practices continue to reinforce unchallenged assumptions and outdated models.

The Conference aims to provide a venue for the exchange of practices that decenter, decolonize and deconstruct language research, revealing methodologies that challenge how knowledge is elicited, framed, and disseminated.

LSPIC2023 invites us to reexamine our research practices involving language, in order to distill existing paradigms into—if not create—frameworks that are more responsive to our local and multilingual contexts.