During the past academic year, the University of Malta’s Department of Maltese began organising regular research seminars for its master’s and doctoral students. These seminars, called Appuntamenti mar-Riċerka, offer an informal and supportive environment for postgraduate researchers to discuss their work-in-progress.

It also held its first annual conference recently at the Valletta Campus’ Aula Magna, during which six of these researchers presented their study on Maltese literature and language, and discussed it with their peers and lecturers.

The conference brought together all postgraduate researchers, departmental lecturers, and other lecturers from the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology.

PhD student Kirsty Azzopardi spoke about phrasal verbs in the Maltese verb sequence, while Yanika Schembri Fava presented her master’s dissertation about the use of irony in popular Maltese verses.

Thomas Pace, who is in the last phase of his master’s dissertation, discussed language policy in language administration, while Lara Stagno, another master’s student, spoke about the aspects of illocution and perlocution in Nadia Mifsud’s poetry.

The final two speakers were PhD students: David Agius Muscat spoke about the definition of standard Maltese during the first half of the 19th century, while Justine Somerville discussed the relationship between memory and narrative fiction.

During the final part of the conference, those present discussed different ways of improving the regular research seminars and the annual conference to continue to assist students in their research journey, and fostering a culture and community of research within the Department of Maltese.

The Appuntamenti mar-Riċerka seminars will resume in September while the second annual conference will be held in June 2023.

Research students delivering their presentations.