English and Other Languages on the Labour Market
Theme: Perspectives of Collaboration Between Philology Departments and Companies

Date: 10-Sep-2025 - 12-Sep-2025
Location: Online
Contact: Teresa Maria Włosowicz
Contact Email: [email protected]
Meeting URL: https://wseh.pl/pl/page/international-conference.html

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Discipline of Linguistics; Forensic Linguistics; Translation

Submission Deadline: 31-May-2025

We are pleased to invite you to the interdisciplinary international conference ‘English and Other Languages on the Labour Market: Perspectives of Collaboration Between Philology Departments and Companies’, which will be held at the University of Economics and Humanities in Bielsko-Biała, Poland, on September 10-12, 2025. The conference will take place online via Zoom. The links to the online sessions will be sent to you by email in early September, before the conference.

The plenary speakers will be:
Professor Iwona Kowal, Jagiellonian University in Krakow
Professor Elżbieta Gajewska, University of the National Education Commission in Krakow
Professor Joanna Kic-Drgas, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
Professor David Lasagabaster, University of the Basque Country, Spain
Professor Konrad Klimkowski, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin
Professor Jacek Makowski, University of Lodz, in collaboration with Agnieszka Stawikowska-Marcinkowska, PhD.

The purpose of the conference will be an exchange of both theoretical and practical knowledge and experience between linguists, economists, language professionals and representatives of the world of business.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Thematic area 1: Translator and interpreter training; LSP in translator and interpreter training; the challenges of specialist translation and interpreting.
1. The role of student internships in translator training.
2. The localisation of specialist software, for example, medical equipment software.
3. The translation of product descriptions, for example, biochemical terminology in the descriptions of cosmetics and food supplements.
4. Translator and interpreter ethics in the age of AI and machine translation.
5. Technical translation and equipment safety; cooperation between translators and engineers.
6. Differences in terminology between languages.
7. Website localisation in different industries.
8. Legal translation in international companies (contracts, statutes, etc.); cooperation between translators and lawyers.

Thematic area 2: Language competences and job requirements
1. Possibilities of cooperation between companies and universities regarding foreign language teaching and learning.
2. The place of English and other foreign languages in job offers and job descriptions.
3. Ways of verifying job candidates’ foreign language competence.
4. Employers’ expectations regarding their employees’ foreign language competence and skills.
5. Various dimensions of intercultural competence at work.
6. Traditional philology and the requirements of the labour market: a possible need for new curricula and a redefinition of philology.
7. Is English enough? The need for English and other languages.
8. Language ecology on the labour market and in the workplace. Sociolinguistic factors in workplace communication.
9. The language policies of companies and institutions.
10. The linguistic landscapes of international corporations.
11. English and other languages in international cooperation (international partnerships, foreign language use in territorial self-government institutions).
12. Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF): challenges and opportunities.
13. Teaching Polish to Ukrainians.
14. The integration of immigrants into the labour market.

Thematic area 3: LSP teaching and lecturing in English in disciplines other than English Philology
1. The challenges of teaching LSP: textbook availability and adequacy, the use of authentic materials.
2. The elaboration of teaching materials: textbook writing and the use of authentic materials. Legal issues, e.g. the use of authentic documents, corporate secrets and data protection.
3. English in medicine: the use of English in the health service, medical students’ language needs and their motivation for learning English.
4. Teaching sciences that involve counting (mathematics, economics, engineering, etc.) and mental processes involved in counting in English as a foreign language.
5. Training sessions and materials in English and the language needs of students and practitioners of less well researched disciplines (for example, beauticians, hairdressers, etc.).
6. Who should teach LSP: teachers with a philological background or specialists in a given field?
7. CLIL in secondary education and teaching academic subjects in English in higher education. The effect of CLIL on English language competence and on secondary school students’ choices of university studies.
8. LSP from the perspectives of teachers, students and employers. In addition to the paper presentation sessions, there will be a discussion panel with the participation of a representative of the Katowice Special Economic Zone and representatives of the world of business. For participants who are interested, a workshop on teaching LSP will be conducted by a representative of Oxford University Press.

The languages of the conference:
The main languages of the conference are English and Polish, with the simultaneous
interpretation of plenary lectures and selected sessions (further information will be
provided when the conference programme is ready). However, if necessary, additional sessions in French, German, Spanish and Ukrainian may be organised, though without simultaneous interpreting.