[EDLING:49] CFP: FEL XI - Working Together for Endangered Languages

[Francis M Hult]

> Call for Abstracts
> 
> The Eleventh Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages: 
> Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
> 
> *Working Together for Endangered Languages: Research Challenges and 
> Social Impacts*
> 
> **University of Malaya
> Kuala Lumpur
> Malaysia
> 
> Dates: 26-28 October 2007
> 
> *
> Call for Abstracts:** FEL XI*
> 
> * *Globalisation has an impact on societies on various levels. One of 
> its implications is the further endangerment of languages, especially 
> those of minority communities. The looming threat of language loss and 
> death is due to the hegemony of more dominant languages in 
> sociopolitical and economic domains. Linguists therefore have an 
> important role in documenting, projecting, and providing information on, 
> languages which face extinction.
> 
>        Linguists undertaking such research must tread carefully in any 
> community which faces language endangerment. The researcher by his or 
> her very presence can disturb the established social relations, the 
> socio-economic organisation, and the power relations within a community, 
> bringing in more globalisation, and more awareness of and exchange with 
> the outside world. Researchers must be made aware of the impact of their 
> presence.
> 
> Communities facing language endangerment may not be cooperative towards 
> outsiders and may view them with suspicion. In some communities breaking 
> such barriers requires tact, effort, and strategic planning. Members of 
> the community facing endangerment should be perceived and treated by the 
> researchers as experts in their heritage language. Such a view 
> inevitably reduces the power inequality between researchers and members 
> of the endangered language and eases collaboration. Cooperation and 
> collaboration may be impeded if the linguist sees him/herself or is seen 
> as someone who is more authoritative and linguistically more ?correct? 
> than members of the community facing endangerment. Such a perception may 
> result in the infamous observer?s paradox where subjects become less 
> natural in the presence of the researcher.
> 
> When researchers do not take members of the studied communities 
> seriously, collaborative work is impeded as the input provided may be 
> distorted due to the researchers? belief that they are the language 
> experts. Linguists must be objective and this can be a challenge as 
> prior knowledge may interfere in their objectivity. Lack of trust and 
> collaboration may result in information not being provided. One way of 
> combating the failure to share information is to ensure that researchers 
> are aware that different members of the community facing language shift 
> are responsible for different kinds of information.
> 
> If communities are informed of the dangers of losing their languages, 
> they may be inclined to collaborate with the linguists to provide 
> information of the language they speak as on them is entrusted the onus 
> of transmitting their heritage to family members. Promoting the 
> popularity of an endangered language in domains such as the workplace, 
> at home and at school may prove to be difficult, as endangered languages 
> face many obstacles namely from the economic functionalities of more 
> dominant languages and the attitudes of younger speakers. At worst, 
> linguists could be seen as counter-productive by the very community 
> whose language they want to save, because the shift away from an 
> endangered language is at times motivated by upward economic and social 
> mobility. 
> 
> 
>        The task of the linguist in this is by no means simple. To 
> penetrate and immerse oneself in an ethnolinguistic speech community 
> whose language may be on the verge of death provides the linguist many 
> challenges on the social and relationship levels. While the linguist is 
> required to collect data as a researcher, s/he must also form a 
> relationship with the members of the community so as to collaborate with 
> them in efforts to promote and preserve the language, in ensuring its 
> revival, in establishing devices and procedures to stop endangerment 
> etc. Given that the endangerment of languages can be handled sensitively 
> through collaboration between researchers and members of a community 
> facing language extinction, this Conference will address the research 
> challenges and social impacts of such collaborations. Amongst the 
> questions raised in this Conference are: 
> 
> ?        What can researchers do to ensure collaboration with members of 
> the language community? What should the researcher do to find a way into 
> the community through proper and accepted channels? What benefits can a 
> language community expect from such collaboration?
> 
> ?        What are the boundaries that the researcher should not cross in 
> order to protect the rights and privacy of the subjects and to safeguard 
> collaborative ties between community and researcher? What are the limits 
> of researchers? duties to the language community, and vice versa?
> 
> ?        What is ?best practice? for researchers in order to be accepted 
> and trusted as in-group members of the community? Does this require the 
> linguist to reduce his/her role as an expert, in order to build trust 
> and collaboration with the community? Can cultural immersion act as a 
> collaborative means in data collection, creating the notion that the 
> researcher is part of the community?s in-group? Are there any advantages 
> in maintaining distance between researcher and community?
> 
> ?        What options do researchers have if they encounter 
> non-collaborative behaviour from their target subjects?
> 
> ?        Can support for maintenance of an endangered language actually 
> be socially counter-productive, when the shift away from an endangered 
> language is seen as progress in economic and social mobility? In such 
> conditions, can the community be made aware of the importance of 
> language maintenance? How can the researcher convince the community of 
> the negative impact of language loss on their culture and history and, 
> conversely, of the benefits of recovery, preservation, promotion?
> 
> ?        How can language documentation work, and its fruits, be 
> integrated into community activities and community development? In what 
> other ways can linguistic research benefit language maintenance and 
> revitalization?
> 
> ?        How can the researcher guard against personally causing damage 
> to existing social and political structures? In particular, how can the 
> researcher avoid disturbing established social relations and 
> organization by seemingly conferring favours on specific members of the 
> community?
> 
> ?        How can the researcher ensure that s/he is not unwittingly the 
> agent of globalisation within the community and thereby the cause of 
> further socio-economic and cultural disruption?
> 
> *Abstracts should make reference to actual language situations , and 
> ideally should draw on personal experience. The aim of the conference is 
> to pool experience, to discuss and to learn from it, not to theorize in 
> the abstract about inter-cultural relations.*
> 
> 
> 
> *Abstract and Paper Submission Protocols*
> 
> In order to present a paper at the Conference, writers must submit in 
> advance an abstract of not more than 500 words before 15 May 2007. After 
> this deadline, abstracts will not be accepted. Abstracts submitted, 
> which should be in English, must include the following details:
> 
> 
> 
> ?        Title of the paper
> 
> ?        Name of the author(s), organisation to which he/she belongs to
> 
> ?        Postal address of the first author
> 
> ?        Telephone number (and fax number if any)
> 
> ?        Email address(es)
> 
> ?        Abstract text (not more than 500 words)
> 
> 
> 
> The abstracts should be sent via e-mail to waninda2001 at um.edu.my and  
> fel at chibcha.demon.co.uk <mailto:nostler at chibcha.demon.co.uk> with the 
> subject of the e-mail stating: ?FEL Abstract: <last name of author(s)>: 
> <title of paper>?  Abstracts will acknowledged on receipt.
> 
> The name of the first author will be used in all correspondence. Writers 
> will be informed once their abstracts have been accepted and they will 
> be required to submit their full papers for publication in the 
> proceedings before 1 September 2007 together with their registration 
> fee. Failure to do so will result in the disqualification of the writers 
> to present their papers. Once accepted, full papers can be submitted in 
> English or Malay. Each standard presentation at the Conference will last 
> twenty minutes, with a further ten minutes for discussion and questions 
> and answers. Plenary lectures will last forty-five minutes each; these 
> are awarded by invitation only.
> 
> *Important Dates*
> 
> ?        Abstract arrival deadlines ? 15 May 2007
> 
> ?        Committee's decision: 15 June 2007
> 
> ?        In case of acceptance, the full paper should be sent by 1 
> September 2007. (Further details on the format of text will be specified 
> to the authors)
> 
> ?        Conference dates: 26-28 October 2007
> 
> The site for the 2007 conference of the Foundation of Endangered 
> Languages, hosted jointly this year with SKET, University of Malaya, 
> will be Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
> 
> University of Malaya is the oldest university in Malaysia, and SKET, 
> i.e. the Section for Co-Curricular Activities, Elective Courses by Other 
> Faculties and TITAS, is responsible for the teaching of 80 co-curricular 
> courses, and the compulsory course ?Ethnic Relations.? (For more 
> information, visit http://www.um.edu.my <http://www.um.edu.my/>).
> 
> The Foundation for Endangered Languages is a non-profit organization, 
> registered as Charity 1070616 in England and Wales, founded in 1996. It 
> exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and 
> promotion of endangered languages. It awards small grants (of the order 
> of US$ 1,000) for all kinds of projects that fall within this remit, and 
> also publishes a newsletter, OGMIOS. It hosts an annual conference, with 
> Proceedings that are available as published volumes. (For more 
> information, visit http://www.ogmios.org <http://www.ogmios.org/>).
> 
> Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the largest city of Malaysia. It is an 
> enclave within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of 
> Peninsular Malaysia. Amongst some of the famous landmarks that the city 
> houses are the Petronas Twin Towers, Menara Kuala Lumpur, Tugu Negara, 
> the National Palace and most recently, the ?Eye of Malaysia? Ferris 
> wheel. Kuala Lumpur enjoys a year-round equatorial climate which is warm 
> and sunny. Rainfall is especially plentiful, during the southwest 
> monsoon from April to September.