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Purpose and tasks
Multilingualism is the central theme of the research conducted by this department. This theme encompasses a wide variety of recent developments and deals with the character of the Frisian society. Questions about the progress of languages and language learning are most important. In this matter, the regional dimension is important, notwithstanding the international dimension, which is of great significance since it enables us the comparison with other language minorities in Europe. Evidently, the contact and the interaction with the Dutch language and culture play an essential role in the current events.
The practice of our research is about trying to retrieve how language and culture function within the Frisian community. We also aim at current social problems that have to do with the performance of governmental organizations, reflection of life and educational impediments. Since the recognition for ‘multilingualism and language diversity’ has grown within the social sciences throughout the last few years, our central theme ‘multilingualism’ remains a good choice. It enables the department to manifest itself at a regional, national and international level.
Apart from the limited number of permanent personnel the department also consists of several temporary employees. The harvest of the work can be found in the overview of publications. Each year several students join our department for a number of months to do an apprenticeship or to write a thesis guided by one of the employees of our department.