From 2006 to 2009, an official proposal for Swiss educational standards was formulated within the framework of the project HarmoS of the EDK. After concluding the political consultations, the standards required finalisation. To do so, the EDK held an initial seminar on 19-20 December 2010 (second seminar on 12-13 January 2011) to determine the final version (in three languages) of national educational standards for German, French and English as foreign languages at the end of primary...

The goal of the project mandated by the department of education of the Canton of Geneva was to understand the role which available orientation measures, including courses, play in the scholastic and professional integration of young immigrants. Moreover, the project aimed to identify systemic challenges facing such institutions, personnel at the institutions and the immigrants themselves.

This project focuses on the study of multilingualism from the perspective of the recent mobilities and globalisation paradigm. This paradigm takes up the analysis of linguistic practices by mobile people with transnational trajectories such as the immigrants or tourists who come to Spain and need to interact and communicate with civic institutions, on the one hand, and with autochthonous people whose life trajectories are more stable, on the other.

The project examines the German-French language border in Switzerland through the analysis of touristic discourses and activities. By looking at the language border through the eyes of tourism, the project places Swiss multilingualism clearly in the context of globalisation and its related socio-economic changes. The research focuses on two regions situated on the language border in the cantons Valais and Fribourg: the areas of Sierre/Siders and Murten/Morat, where tourism plays a key...

This project adopts a sociolinguistic approach to examine the linguistic aspects of tourism on three levels: 1. How do people deal with multilingualism in basic interaction, for example, at the airport or the tourist information desk? 2. How are these practices established in training programs? 3. What linguistic strategies are applied when advertising a particular tourist destination, for example, in slogans and brochures?

Work in our project “Performing Swissness: institutions, discourse and social transformation” focuses on ways in which discourse practices at Swiss institutions for culture, tourism and economic development construct a particular image of Switzerland. The project also explores the role of social and economic transformation when (re-)defining what “Swissness” constitutes.

The city Biel/Bienne is experiencing an economic boom. Alongside the traditional watch industry, Biel/Bienne has set its sights on diversification and is now exploring the service and communication sector. This recent development is particularly interesting due to its link to the city’s bilingual character which in turn, is regarded as a major factor in the economic upswing. In the service and communication sector, bilingualism – or even multilingualism – has effectively become the actual...

In line with the growth of linguistically mediated knowledge in the neoliberal new economy, the international health care sector requires some of its workforce to be multilingual, reflecting an increasing multilingualization as a means of economic expansion and localization. Similar to other service-oriented industries that cater to an international audience, language skills and multilingual repertoires mean an added value to the products of health care providers. This invites us to...

The object of the present investigation is to undertake ethnographic studies at three sites: a non-governmental organization dedicated to adult education, a public hospital, and a multinational company based in Spain.

At the turn of the century, the globalized economy, the weight of international agencies and transnational migrations have increased the demand for multilingual competences in the workplace. In particular, humanitarian agencies must recruit and train mobile and multilingual skilled workers to deploy their humanitarian missions.