The International Colloquium Communication and Culture in Romance Europe (CICCRE)   
the XI^th edition, June 9-10, 2023,   
West University of Timișoara   

Cultural diversity and plurilingualism in the Romance frame

Call for papers

From its founding to contemporary times, the European Romance frame has experienced permanent linguistic, cultural, historic, political, geographical and other dynamic changes. This was possible due to continuous interaction with other cultures, to embracing and integrating them in a profound Latin matrix.

In the European Romania of the last years bilingual education grew, an aspect of great benefit, which goes beyond frontiers and implicitly attracts, together with intercultural communication, the deepening of some complex, interdependent concepts: (multi)cultural competence (intercultural, metacultural, transcultural), plurilingualism.

Knowing the culture and the spirit of a people cannot be done outside its language. As a result, through this unifying educational approach, culture creates not only its own internal architecture, but also our relations with the others, situated in the same frame of spiritual living alike ours – concrete and ideal at the same time. When a city like Timişoara is nominated, in the year 2023, the European Capital of Culture, this fact represents a great chance and a special opening – both inside and outside – for the inhabitants to become aware of their participation in Europe's cultural diversity. The visitors are also part of this special project, with the help of which they will give new dimensions to the city, both of the European culture, in general, and of the Romance culture, in particular, highlighting, as authentic cultural ambassadors, the connection between this constituent city of Romania and the wide world.

The geographical, historical, linguistic and cultural diversity thus involves both plurilingualism (the use of several languages by a person) and multilingualism (the coexistence of more languages in a social group). Romania's cultural and linguistic diversity represents a common precious resource and the efforts made in the educational field allow this diversity to become a source of reflection upon the relation between the common and the specific frames, between adopting and adapting borrowings, a fertile source of understanding and enriching through a more profound reciprocal knowledge of the Neolatin languages.

Taking into consideration the aforementioned aspects and the principles settled by the Council for Cultural Co-operation – The Council of Europe – and by the European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage, the 11th edition of the International Colloquium Communication and Culture in Romance Europe will call into question themes which will be tackled from the above-mentioned scientific direction, that of cultural diversity and plurilingualism in the Romance frame.

All those who are interested – professors, researchers, PhD candidates – are invited to reflect upon the interdiciplinary character of this topic and to submit proposals for one of the following sections: Latin Language and Literature; Romanian Language and Literature; Romanian as a Foreign Language; French Language and Literature; Italian Language and Literature; Portuguese Language and Literature; Spanish Language and Literature; Romance Languages Didactics; History and Cultural Studies; Music and Theatre; Arts; Book and Library.