News

Dear members of the community of the Faculty of Philology,

In Vilnius University, the Faculty of Philology is one of the most multilingual and multicultural, which is our huge advantage and strength. This is a fundamental prerequisite of many of our unique projects and everyday work, it helps maintain our professionalism and openness to people of all races, nations, genders, religions, languages, opinions, and lifestyles. We are also a peace-loving community supporting those who are wrongly accused or disadvantaged, helping all experiencing injustice or humiliation.

In the context of the most atrocious war, many of us have become more sensitive and vulnerable to the surrounding world. However, I would like to encourage you all to concentrate and proceed with your everyday tasks, to discuss, to talk to each other, to solve problems, just to go on living. Let us also make sure that we still adhere to and cherish our key academic and human values, let us respect one another.

I am convinced that each and every member of the community of the Faculty of Philology is a patriot of his/her country and also aware how fragile our common world may be, especially if assailed by suspicion or accusation on the grounds of race, gender, nationality, religion, language, opinion, or lifestyle. Let us try to avoid it. I trust you, I am happy to work together with you.

If you are concerned about suspicious emails or experience humiliating attacks, write to me or call me.

Thank you all for your understanding.

Kind regards,

Professor Inesa Šeškauskienė
Dean of the Faculty of Philology

Dear colleagues,

May I congratulate you on the occasion of the Day of the Restoration of Lithuania’s Statehood! It is the 104th anniversary, and we are proud to be able to celebrate it; during the last three decades, in independent Lithuania, we have also been able to openly share our joy with other people, which was not possible in Soviet times. I invite you all, our dear international friends, to join us in our celebration. I am attaching a lovely picture from last year. I feel you are smiling. :)

Let us share our joy!

Kind regards,

Prof. Inesa Šeškauskienė
Dean of the Faculty of Philology

2021/2022 autumn semester exam retakes will be held from the 4th until the18th of February.

Retake dates for BA students >

Retake dates for MA students >

The dates are constantly being updated as soon as the professors announce it.

If you cannot find the date for the needed subject, please contact the professor and follow the information on Faculty's website.

If you have any questions, please contact us at 

We invite you to participate in the 6th international conference of applied linguistics Language and people: problems and solutions. The conference will take place on 29–30 September 2022, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University.

Keynote speakers: 

    Annick De Houwer (University of Erfurt)
    Marcus Callies (University of Bremen)
    Victoria Guillén Nieto (University of Alicante) 

Conference languages: Lithuanian and English

Submissions are invited for the following contributions:

    full paper presentations: 30 minutes (20 minutes + 10 minutes for questions);
    poster presentations;
    thematic workshops (short: 1.5 hours with 3 presenters; long: 3 hours with 5-6 presenters).

The length of abstracts for full paper and poster presentations is 300–500 words (excluding references). Workshop convenors are invited to submit a description of the workshop (500–700 words, excluding references) and a list of confirmed workshop presenters. Workshop convenors are responsible for selecting presenters and planning slots in their workshops.

Abstracts and workshop proposals should be submitted through the conference website >

COVID-19 information: The conference is envisaged as a live on-campus event, but the organisers reserve the right to run it online in case the pandemic situation changes. Registration fees will be lowered if the conference runs online.

Organizers: Institute of Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University Lithuanian Association of Applied Linguistics (LITAKA).

Contacts:

Email:
Contact person: Mrs Lina Vaškevičienė
Conference website: www.litaka.lt/en/ 

As we are approaching the end of the year 2021, I would like to sincerely wish you white Christmas and a happy prosperous New Year, 2022. The magic triplet of twos divided by a single zero  should bring us all peace and success.

To cheer you up, I am attaching a lovely picture with two baby snowmen, made by our international students studying Lithuanian.

Inesa Šeškauskienė 
Dean

Here is the List of Open Electives for the 2022 spring semester.

These subjects can be chosen with the individual study plan instead of the electives suggested in your study programme.

More information can be found here>

Since English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) courses are becoming more common at European universities, language teachers may be asked to support lecturers and staff. This workshop offered by Leipzig University is designed for English language teachers who want to deepen their understanding of particular language learning issues faced by students, staff and lecturers in the university context.

There are no prerequisites for this course, but participants are asked to join in with their microphone and computer camera on. Participants are encouraged to actively participate, bringing in ideas and practical activities to share with others. Two identical workshops are offered in December.

Target group: English language teachers.

Workshop leader: Mary Waltie, Department Head for English at the Language Center at Leipzig University.

Date and time (CET):

Language Learning and EMI Teaching Intensive (2nd edition): 15th December 2021, 14:00–17:00.

Please register here by 9th December 2021 >

Workshop format: Online (Zoom). Participants will receive an invitation to a Zoom meeting in a timely manner.

Fee: The workshop is free of charge for staff members of the Arqus Alliance partner universities.

Contact: For any enquiries, please contact Jupp Möhring.

Please note: In order to ensure the quality of the session and for the benefit of the participants, the number of participants for this workshop is limited to a maximum of 28. There are 4 workshop places per partner university and these will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If there are less than 4 registrations from one university, the remaining places will be allocated in list order regardless of affiliation to a partner university.

The Arqus workshop series on language and cross-cultural competence is offered in the framework of Action Line 4 Multilingual and Multicultural University (sub-line 4.5), led by Leipzig University. These workshops target academic and administrative staff at partner universities and focus on specific topics such as working and teaching through the medium of English, intercultural awareness in the classroom and outside, and inclusive language.

Everybody is warmly welcome to BKKI seminar October 22, Friday, 3 p.m. which will take place both live and online:

Live 314B aud.

Online >

The speaker is dr Vladimir Panov /Centre for General Linguistics

Theme: What can practice theory contribute to linguistics?

Summary: Contemporary mainstream linguistics as a discipline rests on certain philosophical assumptions about the nature of its research object. First, it by and large accepts the Saussurean "langue" - the language system - as an entity logically prior to its real-life implementation ("parole", speaking). Second, partly as a consequence of the first, linguistics focuses on the modelling of the individual knowledge of language, whereby language system is seen as a "cognitive" phenomenon. Third, synchrony and diachrony are usually treated separately. In my talk, I argue that this view, despite its undeniable success in establishing linguistics as an autonomous discipline and contributing to huge research progress, has its limits. I then present an alternative foundation for the science of language arguing that the latter is not only a cognitive but, first and foremost, a social phenomenon, and is to be treated on a par with other social phenomena. This view can be supported by a family of approaches in social sciences known as "practice theory". These are associated with figures such as Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens and others. In my talk, I will report how their ideas have been recently applied by some linguists in treating concrete linguistic phenomena. Finally, I will discuss how practice theory can be reconciled with cognitive linguistics, frame semantics and construction grammar in particular.