How languages make us: explorations through performance

How does language shape our sense of self? And does being multilingual change the way we think? Join us for a lively evening of talks, poetry and songs celebrating the UK’s rich linguistic cultures and communities. Through multilingual performances – from BSL poetry to Caneuon Cymraeg (Welsh songs) – and talks by leading researchers, we will explore how language shapes our identities, how it connects communities and why learning languages matters for a more inclusive world. Speakers: Professor Robert Dunbar Robert Dunbar is Chair of Celtic Languages, Literature, History and Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh. He is a member of the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, which oversees Gaelic policy in Scotland. He has advised international organisations, governments and legislative bodies, and non-governmental organisations on the protection and promotion of minority languages. Professor Devyani Sharma FBA Devyani Sharma is Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford. She studies accents, dialects, migration, attitudes, and bilingualism. She has conducted research across London and in postcolonial settings, and has worked with the Sutton Trust, the BBC, and corporate and government organisations on language in the workplace. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2023. Professor Bencie Woll FBA Bencie Woll is Honorary Professor of Sign Language and Deaf Studies at University College London. She is a linguist by training and has been involved in research on signage for nearly 40 years, starting with research at the University of Bristol where she was a co-founder of the Centre for Deaf Studies, pioneering research on the linguistics of BSL and on Deaf Studies. She moved to City University London in 2005 to take up the first ever Chair in Sign Language and Deaf Studies in the UK. She was elected a Fellow for the British Academy in 2012 and in 2024 she received an MBE for Services to Higher Education and Deaf People. Performers: Nomakhwezi Becker is a South African–German interdisciplinary artist working through poetry, theatre, and storytelling. Her multilingual work explores memory, language, and belonging across diasporic lineages. She creates in an English shaped by isiZulu, isiXhosa, and German. A Barbican Young Poet (24 & 25), her work has appeared at Translationale Berlin, Poetry Africa, Goldsmiths University, Westminster Abbey & Southbank Centre. Zoë McWhinney is a BSL poet and Visual Vernacular performer based in Southeast London. Born to a Deaf Northern Irish father and a Belgian-Finnish CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) mother, Zoë grew up immersed in the sign language community alongside her three Deaf/Hard of Hearing (HoH) brothers. She has performed at renowned venues such as The Roundhouse and the United Nations in Geneva and made history as the first Deaf poet published in British Sign Language in Modern Poetry and Translation magazine. She was runner up BSL poet laureate for 2023-2024 and again for 2025-2026, nominated for Forward poetry prize in Performance category for The Portrait and The Skylight and consulted for the Royal Shakespeare Company on BSL. She wrote for Dead Centre’s stage adaption of Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic shown at the Royal Court and Dublin Theatre Festival. Mared Williams is a Welsh singer-songwriter from Llannefydd, North Wales. She writes in Welsh and English, and loves blending her rural roots with the influence that living in a city has had on her. Her bilingual debut album Y Drefn was awarded Welsh Language Album of the Year 2021. Her music has been played on BBC Radio Wales Welsh A-list and Introducing show, as well as BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Radio 1 and 6music. She is also an actor and has performed in Les Misérables in London's West End. Chair: Professor Charles Forsdick FBA is Drapers Professor of French and a Fellow of Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge. He completed a PhD at Lancaster on the author, traveller and naval doctor Victor Segalen, under the supervision of Dr David Steel. Following his first post as Lecturer in French at the University of Glasgow, he moved to the James Barrow Chair of French at the University of Liverpool in 2001, a post he held until his move to Cambridge in 2023. He is a specialist in the area of Francophone postcolonial studies, with particular interest in the French-speaking Caribbean. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2021 and is currently the Lead Fellow for Languages. This event has live captions delivered by 121 Captions and BSL interpretation