Finding Your Voice in the World: How Language, Identity, and Resilience Shape Lives

It doesn't take a linguist to see that languages differ from one another. Nevertheless, there are ways in which languages seem to resemble each other. What these apparent similarities tell us about human language is one of the most contentious questions in linguistics. Do similarities between languages reflect a special capacity for language that only humans have? Do they reflect more general features of the human mind? Are they just down to accidents of history? In this talk, I describe how we can use miniature artificial languages to test whether and how language is shaped by the human mind.

There are many misconceptions about bi-multilingualism in children and adults. However, multilingualism in any languages, regardless of their prestige and worldwide diffusion, can give children and adults a range of linguistic, cognitive and social benefits - although not in all contexts and cases. The presence of these benefits crucially depends on reliable information, positive attitudes and firm community foundations for inter-generational transmission. I will show how the international centre Bilingualism Matters brings research to society, enabling people to make more informed decisions.