Aims & Objectives
The general aim of the Malta Centre is to foster interest in the study of Maltese Linguistics and related disciplines by:
- instigating, organising and conducting research into matters concerning Maltese linguistics;
- coordinating academic networks within the community of scholars working on topics related to the Maltese language;
- offering specialised course programmes in linguistics;
- training future experts in Maltese linguistics (Ph.D., M.A., B.A.);
- serving as a platform for scholars and professionals interested in Maltese language and linguistics.
In order to achieve these aims, the Malta Centre encourages research on Maltese using best practice approaches as well as providing the organisational and logistical support for relevant projects. Six ongoing practical tasks include:
- organising the biennial conference (Lingwistika Maltija), which is held at different locations, and the documentation of the conference papers in the form of publications by the renowned publishing house De Gruyter;
- integrating Maltese into the curriculum of two linguistics programmes at the University of Bremen by regularly offering courses related to the Maltese language at both Bachelor’s and Master’s level and by supervising theses on topics related to Maltese linguistics;
- hosting annual summer courses in the learning of Maltese;
- providing sustainable resources to aid research on Maltese. These include: (a) the Malta Centre, Bremen Branch Library with over 1,000 printed works of various genres in Maltese, which can be consulted on-site for research purposes, (b) the continuously expanding open-access bibliography of studies in Maltese linguistics through which linguistically relevant literature on Maltese can be traced online;
- carrying out research focused on Maltese linguistics, jointly supported by the Linguistics Department of the University of Bremen, and the Department of Maltese and the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology of the University of Malta. These include projects on: (a) the productivity of Italian derivational morphology borrowed into Maltese, investigated by Benjamin Saade up till 2020, (b) the project Prepositions and their Grammar in Maltese, approved by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2018 and primarily carried out by Maike Vorholt;
- offering visiting scholars the opportunity to work on projects in the field of Maltese linguistics and promoting the exchange of ideas with other language experts.