By TCN News,
Aligarh: The Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University organized a three-day international seminar on “Pragmatics of Cross-Cultural Communication in a Multilingual Setting” in collaboration with the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore.
Delivering the inaugural function, AMU Vice Chancellor, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Zameer Uddin Shah stressed the need of academic activities and asked the faculty members to focus on carrying high level research that bring laurels to them and to the University. He urged them to help enhance the scholarly pursuits in the campus and prepare their students to achieve excellence. He also highlighted the responsibility of the linguists to take into consideration the changes occurring in society with regard to the language.
Delivering the keynote address, Prof. Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, Orebro University, Sweden, delightfully explained the relationship of human language with the net phonography, mass media and the various language varieties in communication with the several types of language interaction using the terms ‘Languaging’ and hanging out to describe communication contexts that is GTGS (general talk general space).
Prof. Jograj, Urdu Language Testing Institute, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, an organ of CIIL Mysore, underlined the need of conducting seminars and conferences in today’s competitive world. He said that such activities will enhance research possibilities in the various Universities for the students and scholars of Linguistics in India and abroad. He explained how CIIL helped the Department of Linguistics at AMU for conducting seminars and conferences with short intervals.
Earlier, Prof. K.S. Mustafa, Chairman, Department of Linguistics welcomed the guests. Prof. S. Imtiaz Hasnain presented a systematic introduction to the seminar and discussed the general questions – what is meant, what is said and how it is said under Pragmatics, pertaining to the speech act analysis. He also discussed the interpersonal and intercultural levels of communication, highlighting the role of Linguistic politeness and impoliteness in a cross-cultural environment.
On this occasion, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Brigadier S. Ahmad Ali released the books by faculty members of the Department. Dr. Shabana Hameed proposed a vote of thanks. Dr. Masood Ali Beg conducted the function in a scholarly manner.