Visit to Gibraltar

From 18 to 21 April, Cristina Suárez, Gerold Schneider (affiliated member of our project) and Elena Seoane visited Gibraltar with the aim of compiling material for the written component of ICE-GBR. We worked intensively with Dr Jennifer Ballantine, also an affiliated member of our project, who provided us with relevant texts from official reports (administrative writing) and magazines (popular writing) at the Garrison Library. She also introduced us to Dr Geraldine Finlayson, Deputy Head of Heritage, as well as Director of the Institute for Gibraltarian Studies and Chief Laboratory Scientist of the Gibraltar Museum, who helped us with administrative and academic writings, and Charlene Figueras, the Director of the Youth Center, who does incredibly constructive and creative work with the Gibraltarian youth. We also visited The University of Gibraltar and met Dr Darren Fa, the Director of Research and Partnerships at the University of Gibraltar of the University, and his assistant, Karissa Pizzarello, who were extremely helpful with student writings.

We are very grateful to all of them for their time and interest in the project. The Gibraltarian sociolinguistic context is fascinating, complex, extremely attractive and rapidly changing. One thing does not change, though, and that is the generosity of Gibraltarian people and their deep interest in their culture and language.