On Wednesday 4 October 2023, members of the Department of French of the Faculty of Arts and members of the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology (ILLT) participated in a Round Table on Bilingualism and Diglossia – Fundamental notions applied to complex Mediterranean situations, organised by Dr Anne-Marie Bezzina Busuttil from the French Department of the Faculty of Arts.

The keynote speaker was Prof. Ali Ouassou from the Université Ibn Tofaïl in Kenitra, Morocco, who revisited the key sociolinguistic notions of bilingualism and diglossia, proposing a model based on a distinctive use of terminology in order to better account for complex linguistic situations, such as those found in the Mediterranean region.

Prof. Alexandra Vella gave a presentation on Mobility and Language Use, underlining diverse categories of speakers’ efforts to use Maltese in spite of its being for them a heritage or foreign language, and in contrast with the increase in the societal use of English stemming from the recent, large wave of immigration that Malta has experienced.

Dr Sarah Grech presented a talk concerning Maltese English Indexicality in the Maltese Islands, highlighting the place of Maltese English in local society, and giving examples of meaningful and potentially indexical variation in the dialect. Dr Benjamin Matthews, in his presentation Linguistic and Social Asymmetries in Signed/Spoken Language Bilingualism, drew an interesting parallel between bilingual realities, which are rarely balanced in the use of two languages, and the case of signed/spoken language bilingualism, which similarly appears to be marked by differential status, situational selection, as well as other linguistic and social asymmetries.

Dr Anne-Marie Bezzina Busuttil, from the Department of French, Dr Marilyn Mallia, head of the Department of French, and Prof. Stavros Assimakopoulos, Director of the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology, also took part in the discussions that followed each presentation.

Prof. Ali Ouassou presented Dr Marilyn Mallia and Prof. Stavros Assimakopoulos with a commemorative plaque to mark the ongoing collaboration between the Université Ibn Tofaïl and the University of Malta.