Atiner 2024 International Conference on Languages and Linguistics
The 17th Annual International Conference on Languages and Linguistics held by the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) took place on the 8-11th July2024 in Athens, Greece. It was the eighth year in a row of my participation in this Conference under the aegis of ATINER. This Institute organizes numbers of conferences in different fields and some of them run parallel at the same time. A Conference on Architecture was parallel with the Conference on Languages and linguistics this year.
International conferences held by ATINER “are non-thematic small academic events as explained in our policy. The program of a conference may include sessions from parallel academic events organized by other units and divisions of the Institute as this is explained in ATINER’s mission of bringing academics from different disciplines (and countries) together. It also includes small forums and round-table discussions which are part of all the events organized during the specific dates.”
In his Opening Remarks, Mr. Gregory T. Papanikos, President of the ATINER, emphasised that “The Athens Institute’s idea is to revive the ancient glory of Athens by inviting academics and researchers from different countries and disciplines to convene in Athens in small groups, akin to ancient Athenian symposiums, to exchange ideas on their teaching and research, discuss future developments in their disciplines, and engage with professionals from other fields.”
“Athens was the pedagogical (paideia + virtue) center of the Ancient World for over 1000 years, (from the 6th Century BCE to the 6th Century AD). People from all over the world would visit Athens to study, to teach and admire the superb Athenian works of Art and Architecture.” Six Athenians, (Socrates, Plato, Thucydides, Isocrates, Epicurus, and Solon), and six Non-Athenians, (Herodotus, Protagoras, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Zeno of Citium, Founder of the Stoic School, and Parmenides, Greek Eleatic philosopher), taught in Athens.
Types of academic meetings organized by the Athens Institute include microsymposiums, similar to Plato’s symposium, with fewer than 10 speakers, macrosymposiums, which consist of at least six microsymposiums that are “small conferences or symposiums, typically involving between 18 and 50 participants, parallel symposiums, which “involve two or more macrosymposiums of different broad disciplines” and megasymposiums, which are conferences organized in Athens as part of other academic associations’ rotating academic activities”. Megasymposiums “are non-periodical and do not serve the mission of the Athens Institute.”
The Venues of the Athens Institute outwardly are not like modern presidential palaces but they include Plato’s Symposium Rooms, Stoic’s Stoa Room, and cynic’s Room. Apart from academic meetings, participants had a chance to enjoy their company and themselves at an Athenian Early Evening Symposium in a Taberna, Kalokairinos, on the 8th of July, to participate in an Educational Urban Walk, Athens Old and New, on the 9th of July, to sail on an Educational Visit to Selected Islands (Hydra, Poros, Aegina), or visit Mycenae, on the 10th of July, to visit the Oracle of Delphi on the 11th of July, with lunch in a Taberna, Omphalos, on return, to visit Ancient Corinth and Cape Sounion, on the 12th of July, and attend the Academic Discussion in in the downtown Athens open agora, (close to the Aristotelian Lyceum), hosted by the President, on the 13th of July.
The Cultural Program took twice as long as the two Conference days, but this was also part of the idea and mission of the Athens Institute: as the President noted, to say, ‘I work,’ in Athens equals to saying, ‘I am a slave’. The 17th Annual International Conference on Languages and Linguistics was not slaves’ work. The Conference was rich in content and moderate in length while the stay relaxed and enjoyable even under the white sun burning at 37-40 C in the sun-loved city on a while land.
The program of the Conference on Languages and Linguistics may be represented in a few papers. There were numbers of papers presented on languages, for example: The fallacy of the missing Slavic-like accent in Romance languages by Krasimir Kabakčiev, independent researcher, Bulgaria, On the Category of Determiner in Albanian by Hysnie Haxhillari, Albania, Benefits of Adaptive Learning Systems in passing Pre-Calculus by Daniel Teodorescu, Atlanta University, USA, and others. M Liudvika Drazdauskiene presented on Language, culture and teaching, who, on an overview of two books of the 19th and 20th century, found language and culture inseparably interrelated and claimed that it is required to focus on different degrees of formality and the power of language at school and university to form or take over cultural stance and habits. She stated that theories should be left to theorists, while at school, the concept of two persons in communication is sufficient to pass over and spread cultural customs, traditions and habits without compartmentalizing language which integrates culture wholly and segmentally and must be resourced in its wholeness.
The paper, The Impact of Utilising Literature on Student’s Writing Skills, by Suhair Al-Alami, UAE, highlighted the uses of literature, echoed some of the ideas of the previous paper, and showed that diverse ways of reading, relations with stylistics and literary criticism, and different accompanying courses enhance students’ writing skills. She even voiced an opinion that “we are good students because we are good readers.” In a paper, Language and Communication in Vocational Colleges…, Mzamani Reckson Baloyi, South Africa, emphasised that colleges should improve the knowledge of the students, cater for their professional development and employment and that to alter programmes means to suit the context, that context is most influential in learning and language use, that students should be encouraged to write in context while adjusting the content of their writing, and that there should be contextual differentiation of content in textbooks.
Mine Bellikli, Atilim University, Turkiye, spoke of how to make teachers’ professional development engaging and effective. She pointed out that it is difficult for teachers to be certain of the results of their teaching and encouraged reflection. She noted that training and development may be confusing while training is a long job, teachers’ development depended on their understanding of themselves. Limiting content may be helpful because more is not always better.
Amany Saleh, Arkansas University, USA, spoke about ways of students’ retention in higher education. Erik Hedlund, Swedish Defence University, Sweden, spoke about Exercises for Developing Civil-Military Collaboration Capability while emphasizing civil and military relations, production, kinds of exercises, participation and observation, the necessity of knowledge and the role of access to it through reading, and other aspects of readiness for the unexpected. Three papers on digital technology and AI encouraged development of digital skills.
Paulina Pizarro Laborda, University of Americas, Chile, presented on Linguistic Sequences in Educator-Initiated Activity, while teaching young children to respond. She noticed that children tend to give more literal answers if addressed with literal questions while their free responses in a variety of forms is expected. This task involved exercises and practice in the pattern initiation – response – follow-up. The focus on the same topics had its benefits in developing young children’s verbal responses.
Ming Liu, Hong Kong, spoke of the manipulation of different discourses by business tycoons and mass media in her paper, Blessing or curse? Recontextualizing “996” in China’s overwork debate, while showing how employees are classified into ‘true’ and ‘false’ brothers: if you work hard, you are a true brother, if you are a slacker, you are a false brother. This practice in the treatment of employees tends to assign employees frequently into false categories encouraging social unfairness.
Joanne McDowell, University of Hertfordshire, UK, spoke of misconceived feminine and masculine attitudes and practices in education, in her paper, Masculinity and Non-Traditional Occupations: Men’s Talk in Women’s Work. Preconceived ideas in masculinity, which is thought often to be missing in education, can distort even a mother’s attitude to her child when she deli berates whether she can cuddle it when it is crying, because of the masculine theory of the unacceptability of feminine tenderness. Another assumption is that “female teachers can’t deal with boys adequately,” which is as poisonous to natural relations with children. She spoke emotionally about the necessity to inform and educate girls to prepare them to respond adequately to male pressure on the grounds of ingrained biased sexual and emotional assumptions.
Jola Wysokińska, Independent Researcher, Poland, presented on the topic, Teaching Social Studies in the Teacher Education Classroom: Employing Family’s Genealogical History for Adolescents. She showed how interesting it may be to focus on family history with teenagers and how successful this engagement may be in the teaching and acquisition of social skills at an early age.
John Liontas, Associate Professor, University of South Florida, USA, overwhelmed the audience with his initial brush over the known and current idioms to involve the audience by surprise. In his paper, Idiomatics: The Ethos, Pathos and Logos of Idiomatics Proper, he claimed and illustrated that terminology is not functioning well in the sphere of idioms because every author finds it relevant to apply his own terminology and so the general picture in classifying idioms is motley indeed. Although this speaker did not explain what he meant exactly by the new theory which “is required” but he noted that the cognitive approach may solve some of the problems while pure descriptive practice seems to have exhausted its resources.
Conferences organized by the Athens Institute are truly democratic events at which, this time, more than 140 researchers from 37 different countries were welcome and presented without severe criticism from the audience, responded to questions, participated in scholarly discussions, made new contacts, and so benefited as persons, practitioners and researchers. The democratic atmosphere and attitudes at the Athens Institute’s conferences also owe to the original inception of democracy in Athens, with the first meetings having taken place at the foot of the Acropolis. This is also reflected in the policy of ATINER.
It was a pleasure to meet the Organisers of the Conference, some of whom treated me as an old acquaintance, a few people with whom I had been familiar from earlier international conferences and make new friends among colleagues in the profession. Trips and visits after the Conference refreshed my familiarity with Greece, a beautiful and welcoming country, while Athens has recently been said to be “the most favourable city for tourists.” Indeed, the motto of Athens includes a line from an ancient document, which runs, “Our city is open to the world. We never expel a foreigner from coming and learning”.
Vilnius, 24 July 2024