ESRC: New centre for bilingualism announced

Friday, 02, Feb 2007 12:00

Today the Economic and Social Research Council, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government have together announced £5million funding for a new research centre to study bilingualism.

Based at the University of Wales, Bangor, the new research centre aims to create greater understanding of bilingualism across the world. Research will focus on the nature of the relationship between the two languages of individual bilingual speakers as well as amongst the wider community.

Director for the new centre will be Professor Margaret Deuchar, of the School of Linguistics and English Language at Bangor University, with colleagues Professor Colin Baker of the School of Education and Professor Virginia Gathercole of the School of Psychology as Co-Directors.

Professor Deuchar commented: “Recent years have seen an explosion of research in this area, as a result of which our understanding of the nature of the individual bilingual mind, language use and development and of the bilingual community is on the verge of a significant leap forward.

“Examples of the areas that will be studied include language-pair comparisons, such as Spanish-Welsh that will provide a contrast to the better known English-Spanish and English-Welsh pairs.”

Influencing public understanding of the nature of bilingualism and its social and psychological effects both in the UK and abroad will also be central to the research. Additionally, by examining language use in the classroom, the research will also be of interest to school language teachers and other language professionals who will be able to draw on the findings to complement their teaching and enhance their understanding of bilingualism.

One appealing aspect of the new centre is that, alongside methods traditionally used in linguistics, psychology and education, it features a neuroscientific angle. The neuroscience group headed by Dr Guillaume Thierry will investigate the mechanisms by which one brain can handle two different languages.

Located in the well established bilingual community in the Welsh-English speaking area of North Wales, the new research centre will have an advantage in providing easy access to bilingual people and will allow an unprecedented concentration of effort on Welsh-English bilinguals as well as offering a springboard into other bilingual communities..

The centre will also contribute to building research capacity in the area of bilingualism by training postgraduate students and by offering a variety of other opportunities such as postdoctoral and international research fellowships.

Jane Davidson, the Welsh Assembly Government's Minister for Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills said: "I welcome this development, which builds on research excellence at the University of Wales, Bangor in this interesting academic area of study. It will greatly increase our understanding of bilingualism. It has direct relevance to Wales as a bilingual country."

Professor Ian Diamond, Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council, commented: “I am delighted that by working together with the other funders we have been able to establish this significant new research centre. This is an important opportunity to develop our understanding of bilingualism, potentially with far reaching implications for bilingual language policy, planning and implementation.”

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. The ESRC is the UK’s largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC’s planned total expenditure in 2006-07 is £169 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk

2. ESRC Society Today offers free access to a broad range of social science research and presents it in a way that makes it easy to navigate and saves users valuable time. As well as bringing together all ESRC-funded research and key online resources such as the Social Science Information Gateway and the UK Data Archive, non-ESRC resources are included, for example the Office for National Statistics. The portal provides access to early findings and research summaries, as well as full texts and original datasets through integrated search facilities. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk

3. The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) is an Assembly Sponsored Public Body responsible for administering funds made available by the Welsh Assembly Government in support of:

? the provision of education in higher education institutions (HEIs);

? the undertaking of research by HEIs; and

? the provision of prescribed courses of higher education at further education institutions.

HEFCW is also responsible for accrediting providers of initial teaching training for school teachers and commissioning research to improve the standards of teachers and teacher training.

In addition to its funding responsibilities, HEFCW provides advice to the Welsh Assembly Government on the funding needs, aspirations and concerns of the higher education sector in Wales

4. The University of Wales, Bangor is a long established University with over 9,000 students studying a broad range of subjects.

The University is committed to providing teaching of the highest quality, conducting research of the highest quality, taking good care of its students and playing a full role in the wider community.

The most recent Research Assessment Exercise confirmed the University’s status as a world-class research institution.