Readers may be keen to know that Thailand’s Royal Institute is organising a conference with the theme “National Language Policy: Language Diversity for National Unity”. Among many other topics it hopes to include material on “Language policy and socio-economic theory (with special emphasis on the Self-Sufficiency Economic Theory of His Majesty King Bhumibol of Thailand)”.
According to the blurb:
The Royal Institute of Thailand, in cooperation with UNESCO-Bangkok, UNICEF-Thailand, the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), the Embassy of Australia, and SIL International, invite scholars, government officials, and language practitioners from around the globe to submit abstracts…
Important details on the conference and the full call for papers are available from this PDF. If any New Mandala readers are planning to attend we would, as usual, be keen to host a report on proceedings.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // Jan 26, 2008 at 1:01 am
Thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to attend, for reasons more personal than professional. I’m eager to see what comes out of the conference though.
By the way, such a shame that they chose to have the conference at the Twin Towers Hotel; the place smells like a giant ashtray.
2 jonfernquest // Jan 26, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Potentially interesting. What would be more interesting is if people put their papers online after the conference so everyone could read and gain from their ideas, rather than putting ominous looking “Please do not quote this article” notices on every page, and then ten years later, they publish something remotely looking like the paper in some obscure journal that no one reads.
I won’t attend, despite being directly involved in such matters in my daily work, because I have **more pressing uses for my salary** (which never seems to be enough for my family despite sufficiency economy philosophy, which actually could improve life if people actually took it seriously, in fact what HMK is really doing IMHO is directing his subjects to **Buddhist thinking on matters such as moderation**, see “Dana: Giving and Getting in Pali Buddhism” (2003) Ellison Banks Friendly, the point made over and over gain ad nauseam in this blog, that when powerful and rich people, like generals, for instance, tell people to lead a “sufficient” lifestyle it looks self-serving and hypocritical, well that’s obvious).
I know people might laugh, but **learning English through Pali** might be a good idea. My former monk friend at work has an astounding vocabulary in Thai from his study at Mahachulongkorn Buddhist University and this conceptual structure could be mapped to English with some good pedagogy.
3 Srithanonchai // Jan 26, 2008 at 6:31 pm
xWhy do they have to have different fees for “Thai residents” and “Non-Thai residents”? And what does it mean? All are residents in Thailand, while the distiction is between “Thai” and “Non’Thai”? Or do people living in Thailand are “Thai residents” (whether Thai or foreigner), while people living outside of Thailand are “Non-Thai” (whether Thai or foreigners)? Why should the poor people from Laos, Cambodia, Burma, or Vietnam pay the steep $150?
4 jonfernquest // Jan 28, 2008 at 8:15 pm
“Why do they have to have different fees…?”
Fee differentiation seems like a moot point.
Isn’t the basic idea to get knowledge flowing and people collaborating with each other, and to do whatever it takes to achieve this objective.
Meeting frequently at low cost, either face to face at some venue that is close to free, and following it up with meeting over the internet, which is definitely free.
My favorite is the counterintuitive charging people to speak and charging them even more for the projector if they take the time to do a professional Powerpoint presentation. (??!?!?!)
What this ultimately leads to is a bunch of westerners teaching in Japan who need to fulfill some conference requirement at their university.
Talked last year to a senior university lecturer from Tel Aviv who specialized in teaching nurses medical English and she said they’re cutting this kind of conference junket stuff out (along with academic tenure) and moving to a leaner temp-outsourcing way of running their departments, so this sort of thing might eventually become history many places. Better start planning for the fully networked age now before it’s too late.
5 jonfernquest // Jan 28, 2008 at 8:34 pm
“Why do they have to have different fees…?”
Fee differentiation seems like a moot point.
Isn’t the basic idea to get knowledge flowing and people collaborating with each other, and to do whatever it takes to achieve this objective.
Meeting frequently at low cost, either face to face at some venue that is close to free, and following it up with meeting over the internet, which is definitely free.
My favorite is the counterintuitive charging people to speak and charging them even more for the projector if they take the time to do a professional Powerpoint presentation. (??!?!?!)
What this ultimately leads to is a bunch of westerners teaching in Japan who need to fulfill some conference requirement at their university.
Talked last year to a senior university lecturer from Tel Aviv who specialized in teaching nurses medical English and she said they’re cutting this kind of conference junket stuff out (along with academic tenure) and moving to a leaner temp-outsourcing way of running their departments, so this sort of thing might eventually become history many places. Better start planning for the fully networked age now before it’s too late.
[System not giving feedback to poster so it looks like post not being accepted]
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