International Conference on Youth Languages, 26-28 May 2021 - a reflection by John Bellamy

ICYL 2021

During the three-day event, forty speakers presented their recent research on how the concept of change intersects with youth language. A key aspect of the conference was representation of linguistic situations from a wide range of global contexts and social practices. Another core element of the conference was to promote research approaches which increasingly encourage the agency of young people as co-researchers rather than simply 'passive' participants. The initial keynote by Ellen Hurst (Cape Town) focused on changing approaches to youth language research in Africa, and was followed by a diverse set of papers on youth language variation, pragmatics, social media and the language of protest.

The next day began with another keynote from Kate Pahl (MMU) and Hugh Escott (Sheffield Hallam) on multimodality, (new) materialism and co-production with young people in applied linguistics. The talk introduced fresh perspectives on literacy, critical approaches to language in the context of education and innovative research methods that embrace participation and co-production with young people. The following presentations each covered a different national and regional context in their explorations of youth language. They encompassed phonology, identity construction, online interactions, boundaries, indigenous languages, creative multilingual practices and lexis.

The final keynote from Christian Ilbury (Suffolk) introduced the final day of the conference. He presented his cutting-edge research on youth styles in the era of digital culture, emphasising the diminishing boundary between 'online' and 'offline' worlds, identities and language usage. The rest of the day continued with interesting papers on intersections between youth language and the role of music, youth agency, language revitalisation, heritage languages and the labelling of linguistic varieties. The conference closed with an engaging discussion led by Rob Drummond (MMU) that brought the main strands of the presentation topics together with a view to proposing future lines of enquiry and research in the area of youth language.

The programme is available via the ICYL20201 webpage: https://www.mmu.ac.uk/mcys/news/icyl2021/