INS/URGENT CONVERSATIONS: doing linguistics in contemporary reality

Interview with Roberto Bein

Abstract

The III International Encounter: derechos lingüísticos como derechos humanos en Latinoamérica. CONVERSACIONES INS/URGENTES took place on May 21, 22 and 23, 2024, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the UNC. This encounter, as described on the website of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, “ discusses the relationship between linguistic rights and human rights, between the right to speak and the right to a dignified life, the right to one's own speech and thought, the right to say and to do”. Within this framework, our objective was to dialogue with various representatives of the current linguistics field on the role of the linguist and on what it means to “do linguistics” in the current socio-political context. To this end, we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with seven speakers at the meeting based on five basic questions. This collective activity was carried out during the encounter and developed in person by the different members of the FORMAR research project La Conformación del Corpus como Problema y como Proceso en Estudios de Caso sobre Diversidad y Variación Lingüística (SECyT 2023) coordinated by Sofía De Mauro and Luisa Domínguez. Each participant included the questions in the conversation in different ways: some of us read them, others paraphrased them, others included them in a more open dialogue. In this particular interview, we talked with Virginia Unamuno to think about “the challenge of living in a livable world where the battle for language is recognized as a battle for rights”.