Dr Tatsioka at the 21st Sociolinguistics Symposium in Spain

Dr Zoi Tatsioka, Lecturer of the English Studies Department, participated in the 21^st Sociolinguistics Symposium (15-18 June), which was organized by the University of Murcia in Spain. The Sociolinguistics Symposium, a biennial conference established in 1976, is considered to be the most prestigious and leading conference on Language in Society, attracting more than 600 scholars from around the world.

Dr Tatsioka delivered a presentation entitled “English Loanword Use and Linguistic Prestige on Greek Television”, which examined instances of language contact from a sociolinguistic perspective as depicted on Greek television. During her presentation, Dr Tatsioka provided the theoretical background of her study emphasizing the symbolic value of English and its prestige in the Greek linguistic community and offered indicative examples from the data collected taking into consideration the speakers’ perceived intentions as well as the needs of their audience.

Her study has a range of linguistic and social implications as it demonstrates the influence of the English language and its popularity on the linguistic repertoire of Greek speakers and the plausible intelligibility issues that may emerge from this practice.