"Standard English in the world" -- dr Anthea Fraser Gupta -- open lecture for staff and students

Next Friday, 23.03.2007 at 11:30 in C1, Dr Anthea Fraser Gupta, Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Leeds, is going to give a talk on "Standard English in the world". She is going to address the crucial questions facing everybody interested in the role, form and status of English nowadays, especially linguists, EFL teachers and researchers into all aspects of culture:

• How to define Standard English?

• Is there one Standard English or many Standard Englishes?

• What to do with variation within Standard English?

• How to approach Standard English in the EFL context?

Both staff and students, are cordially invited to the lecture, especially that it is scheduled during the duty hour when everybody can attend.

Dr Gupta specialises in World English(es), bilingualism, language contact, language acquisition and sociolinguistics. She spent 21 years as a university lecturer in Singapore, and cooperates with the Oxford English Dictionary and Encarta as an expert on words of Southeast Asian origin. She is taking active part in the current debate on Standard English and English as a World Language. Her voice can be heard in specialist international pubications devoted to this topical issue. She maintains an extensive personal website on Singapore English, and also contributes to Language Varieties Network and to The Postcolonial Web. She is also interested in innovative teaching methodologies and in exploring the possibilities of the internet in education (see here) .

Dr Gupta is visiting IFA to begin, what we hope to become, a regular exchange of staff and students with the School of English at Leeds. At the moment we are finalising the ERASMUS exchange for staff, hopefully starting next year, and we will be working to extend this cooperation to include students. School of English at Leeds is a 5-star department at one of the top British universities, rated as "excellent" both nationally and internationally together with other 35 departments of the University of Leeds. Leeds is in the UK top-ten in research power, market share of research funding and the number of applicants. (University of Leeds web site.)