The objective of this international symposium is to provide an arena for researchers and scholars in the field of Eurolinguistics concerned with issues related to language barriers which impede quality public services in Europe. Public services tend to be those considered essential to modern life in a wealth of contexts including institutional public services, such as education, healthcare, justice, social services, police services, municipality services, and also social contexts in which the public is negotiated.
Overcoming language barriers in these contexts means allowing people from whatever geographical or social background to freely access public services without privilege or prejudice.
These various communicative spaces call for a bottom-up perspective in exploring language and its role in breaking down barriers in communication, intercultural encounters and in social cohesion. We suggest a broad interdisciplinary perspective to the concept of the public service, taking on both professional and broader social issues of public practices. This perspective opens to multiple interactive public spaces, where language barriers may create a number of gaps in institutional, social, educational, intercultural and global services in daily communicative practices.

Proposals for papers and posters are welcome from, but not limited to, any of the following thematic areas in which miscommunication, intercultural conflicts and social exclusion may occur:

1. Language Barriers in Institutional Public Services, including medical, legal, political and financial practices;
2. Language Barriers in Daily Public Services, including bureaucratic, commercial, and mass-media practices;
3. Language Barriers in the Public Service of Education, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary educational practices, national and international educational contexts, professional problem-based and task-based training;
4. Language Barriers in Global Public Services, including developing skills, competences and qualifications for inclusion in the current digital and knowledge-based society, new electronic communicative practices, accessing English as a Lingua Franca;
5. Language Barriers in Social Practices, including Translation, Interpreting, Intercultural Mediation, and Migrant/Multicultural Literature writing;
6. Language Barriers in other social and professional practices.

Contributors are invited to send an abstract of their proposed paper or poster in MS Word (12pt) of maximum 300 words (excluding references)to the following address:

annafranca.plastina@unical.it

Contributors should specify in the abstract one of the six analytical areas (e.g. 1, 2) into which their papers fall. Papers will be allotted 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes each for discussion at the end of the part-session. Posters should be 841mm x 1189mm in portrait orientation.

Languages of presentations: English, Italian, French and German.