Funders, Sponsors and Partners
Join us for the first Mother Tongues International Festival!!!
The New Speakers Studio is proud to have been invited to present a film screening and publication as part of the first Mother Tongues Festival in Dublin.
The works in the exhibition explore the dynamics involved in becoming a new speaker of a language in multilingual Europe, where globalisation, mobility and transnational networking are transforming the linguistic ecologies of contemporary societies.
They have been created by Deirdre MacKenna, drawing from new research funded by the EU COST programme ‘The New Speakers Network‘ which is chaired by Bernadette O’Rourke of Heriot Watt University and comprises members from 28 EU countries: The New Speakers Network focuses on the dynamics involved in becoming a ‘New Speaker’ in European communities in which globalization, mobility and transnational networking are transforming how people use languages.
To make the New Speakers Studio, Deirdre interviewed sixteen people, listening to their stories and opinions about being a New Speaker, and asking them to bring an object which acts as a surrogate for them in the representation of their stories. From the images and interviews, Deirdre created The New Speakers’ Studio which comprises printed booklets and posters, films and photographs. These will be presented at The Mother Tongues International Festival through an installation designed by Deirdre which invites audiences to reflect on the experiences New Speakers encounter during their language journeys.
Find out more at
http://www.nspk.org.uk/the-new-speaker-studio.html
https://issuu.com/home/publications
WHY A MOTHER TONGUES FESTIVAL?
The most recent census in 2016 recorded that 612,018 residents in Ireland spoke a language other than the country’s official national languages English or Irish at home (CSO, 2017), and thousands of people spoke Irish regularly.
One of the goals of Mother Tongues is to raise awareness of the value of multilingualism and to encourage parents to transmit their language to their children.
Having a festival in which many languages are used for many different purposes is our way to show that every language matters, no matter how “big” or “small” it is! Our artists, performers and language lovers will entertain their audiences in their own mother tongue, while showing that our many languages are alive, and they are all around us! Find out more about Mother Tongues at this link.