Things, linguists should be aware of
On the 4th of October there was the Linguistics Forum which took place right at LUNN. My groupmates and I visited it and, while listening to the speakers, learned some new aspects and theories connected with the concept of linguistics.
To begin with, such events are urgently useful for students, especially future linguists, as we should be informed of both various linguistics issues and their influence on politics in general. The mention of Global English, for instance, and the validity of using it — is only one of the to-think-over questions. We may face such issue either in our future profession or even in writing our theses. No matter where it could be, it definitely makes youngsters thing about some linguistics issues which some of us haven’t thought about before. It helps to realize that to be a linguist means not only to be the one who knows linguistics perfectly and all its parts connected but also about politics and international relations.
Furthermore, I really appreciated listening to the speakers not only from Nizhny Novgorod. It was smart of the conductors of the forum to arrange a virtual lecture on Skype. So that we could listen to people’s reports and presentations who wasn’t able to present at the forum.
Another one great thing about the forum was that there were people not only from other universities or scientific organizations and institutes but people from schools and libraries. For instance, one of the speakers was a woman that works at the library. Her speech was about various useful events which they organize there especially for kids. They arrange reading classes for little children, get together to celebrate holidays (like Halloween, etc.). The best thing I liked listening to that woman was that the faculty of the library suggest kids reading some good books translated by spectacular professionals to their fingertips. The point was, that some parents are afraid of reading translated books and due to it, they often insist on reading only Russian literature. According to the words of that woman, the staff of the library are reassuring parents and making them forget about stereotypes. I find it wonderful that there are people who develop the idea of kids’ development showing them culture of other countries. It makes people more broad-minded and tolerant.
To sum up, I appreciate that our university arrange such great events.
