Last January, the Center for Applied Linguistics, attached to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment's Agency of Social and Humanistic Sciences, hosted the 18th International Symposium on Social Communication, which was dedicated to the 95th birthday of its initiators Julio Vitelio Ruiz Hernández and Eloina Miyares Bermudez. Attended by Cuban and international participants, the gathering opened a space for debate and dialogue among seasoned experts.
Are we making science fiction a reality? This was the topic presented by Dr. Anton Nijholt from the University of Twente, The Netherlands, in the Symposium’s second plenary keynote speech entitled Augmented Reality: Perceiving and Experiencing What Possibly Cannot Be Real (Although It May Be Humoristic). His research focuses on Augmented Reality as a significant element in social communication and for the future, taking into account the development and advance of new technologies and their impact on society, which allows the interaction between real and virtual worlds. It is important to highlight that eminent Prof. Nijholt was awarded the 50th Anniversary of the Center for Applied Linguistics Commemorative Certificate at the opening ceremony of the Symposium in recognition of his active and yearslong attendance to the conference.
One of the projects the Center for Applied Linguistics is currently working on delves into Nicolás Guillén’s poetry lexicon. Dr. Leonel Ruiz Miyares, Director of the Center for Applied Linguistics, gave the closing keynote address entitled Folklore and Social Vocabulary in Guillén’s Poetry and presented the research outcomes to this date. In his lecture, Ruiz Miyares examined various aspects of Cuban National Poet poetic text, including the deliberate use of morphological, phonetic and graphic irregularities; the use of nonsense poetry, onomatopoeias and distorted foreign words, as well as other thought-provoking expressive resources. This investigation is the result of the hard work by researchers at the Center with the ultimate goal of deepening into Guillén's poetic lexicon and expanding the knowledge of its main features, all of which make up the identity of Cuban poetry. This study represents a milestone in Cuban Lexicology, thus, contributing to the nation’s scientific and cultural development. (02/01/2023)