Tarptautinė konferencija „Nacionalinės kalbos mokslo ir aukštojo mokslo srityse“

282 Languages Culture | 84 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE On 29 and 30 August 2011, the International Conference on National Languages in Academic Research and Higher Education was held in Tallinn. The conference was dedicated to: • academic language policy; • analysis of the languages in which students are taught, dissertations are written, scientific journals are published in universities of the countries according to scientific fields; • research on the quality of scientific language and its development in the modern, globalizing world. The conference was organized by the Academic Estonian Language Centre of the University of Tallinn together with the Estonian Language and Culture Institute. The spiritus movens of the conference was Dr. Peep Nemvalts. It was attended by more than thirty scientists from other higher education institutions in Estonia, Belgium, Great Britain, Latvia, Finland. there were also overseas guests from Mexico, United States of America. The plenary presentations were read by Professor Kirsti siitoön nen of the Turkish University and the author of these lines. In her presentation “Finnish in higher education, humanities and natural sciences” Kirsti siitonen outlined language policy strategies that each university should develop. In Finland, the Finnish Language Institute (Kotus) encourages universities to develop their own higher education language policies, publicize them and exchange good practices with other universities. Since universities have autonomy, there can be no law or decree, but a system can be created that encourages the higher moah cycle to choose a moderate, sensible and unrestricted policy of Finnish language rights. The report also presented and commented on the statistics of how Finnish is used in the preparation of teaching texts, writing dissertations, scientific articles. practical recommendations were also given on how students of various specialties at the Turkish University are taught to write in the academic Finnish language, as such skills are very lacking. The situation in the fields of science and higher education in 283 Finnish universities is uneven, but, as later in the discussions became clear, quite complicated. This country, together with the Netherlands and Denmark, leads Europe in terms of the number of higher education programmes, dissertations and scientific publications in English. Finnish language specialists are not satisfied with this, they see a negative influence on the development of the Finnish language and its concepts. The presentation “The language of science in Lithuania: challenges and opportunities” looked at the situation of the Lithuanian language in Lithuania from several perspectives: the new requirements for Lithuanian language after it became the official language of the EU; to present the most important Lithuanian policy documents in the fields of science and higher education; discussed the problems of quality of academic language and terminology, searching for solutions; attention was drawn to the language supervision of textbooks initiated and carried out by the State Lithuanian Language Commission. The audience was particularly interested in the part of the presentation that revealed how Lithuanian is being developed as a scientific language in foreign universities and research institutions, i.e. in Baltic and Lithuanian studies centres, where Lithuanian is not only taught, but also used in the preparation of theses, scientific journals, articles and monographs. The author of the presentation relied on the material and insights provided by Irena Smetona, Chairperson of the State Lithuanian Language Commission. Two other presentations from Lithuania were made by Nijolė linkevičienė, Anos ruskan and Birutės ryvytytės – “A tool for researching academic writings”, which examined the possibilities of the academic Lithuanian language textbook (Coralit), and Anos ruskan presentation “Evidence adjectives in the academic demonic discourse of Lithuanian language”, which showed how Coralit is used in a specific research. Peepas Nemvaldts and triin roosalu presented the first results of a broad study of how the national language used in academic discourse affects the perception of the world (cognitive aspect) and forms of linguistic expression. The researchers are based on the work of Kees de Bot, developing his ideas in the context of Estonian kalk bo. the study is very interesting and its results show the benefits of national academic language. If the position of a single language is weakened in its academic field, it does not only affect terminology, but also changes the perception of the world through language and reduces the forms of linguistic expression. It was discussed how to create a balance in order to maintain multilingualism in European science and higher education and optimally exchange new knowledge generated by scientists of different languages, because it is very important that scientific development is intensive. by the way, Leif Höckerstedt from the University of Helsinki, who teaches at the Thomas Stephenson Institute of the Jesuits 284 Languages Culture | 84 titute, Goa, India, read a report “English in higher education – and what next?” about the language situation in India (22 official languages) and jokingly embarrassed Europe – so few languages, and the problem cannot be solved. The thesis of the conference is published online (see http://www.tlu.ee/files/arts/10106/Natac818599b30c9375d860436bf2b929fef2.pdf). It was a pleasure to see how our neighbours are concerned about the status of Estonian as a scientific language in the international space. The participants of the conference constantly felt the attention of the rector of the university. Already after the conference, a discussion for the enlightened community was organized, in which the author of these lines also participated, as reported by the cultural publication sIrP (see http://www.tlu.ee/files/arts/10106/ Natac818599b30c9375d860436bf2b929fef2.pdf). The conference raised topical issues, it was very needed. This topic should be extended in Lithuania. Received 12/12/2011 JolaNta ZabarsKaItĖ Lithuanian Language Institute P. Vileišio g. 5, lt10308 Vilnius Jolanta.Zabarskaitė@lki.lt