Researchers from 15 countries, including the UK, the US, Ireland, Germany, Finland, China, Latvia, Belarus, participated in the Communications in Multicultural Society international conference.
Representatives of universities and institutes from across Russia, including the Far East and Kamchatka, demonstrated their latest scientific achievements. Teachers, professors and researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Linguistics Institute, the Lomonosov Moscow State University, the National Research Nuclear University (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute), the Moscow City Education University, the St. Petersburg State University and other universities presented their various research reports.
“The plenary sessions and sections focused on language contacts in a multicultural society, and cognitive aspects of multicultural communication. The participants stressed the importance of teaching multicultural communication skills in learning foreign languages at a time when international contacts and cooperation in various science and engineering areas are growing,” the conference press release states. At an interactive workshop with Robin Cranmer from the University of Westminster (UK) on integration of intercultural communication skills into foreign language teaching, participants discussed aspects of intercultural teaching. The working groups headed by Raymond Hickey (University of Duisburg and Essen), Eeva Sippola (University of Bremen) and Ka Wah Chan (Hong Kong Baptist University) covered multilingualism and cultural identity issues as well as the sociocultural specifics of discourse as well as intercultural communication in mass media discourse. The webinar by professors Rauf Arif, Mary Anna Kidd and Justin Velten from the University of Texas (USA) spoke about communication technology and media resources in the globalized world.
