CFP: Language Endangerment: Methodologies and New Challenges

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Language Endangerment: Methodologies and New Challenges

University of Cambridge

6th July 2012
At a time when UNESCO deems 43% of the world's 6,000 languages at risk
of extinction, the imperative to record and analyse these linguistic
varieties while they are still spoken has scarcely been  greater. Yet
researchers have ostensibly been slow to avail themselves of the
opportunities offered by new techologies, from visual and aural
archiving, to digitisation of textual resources and electronic
mapping, techniques which could have the potential to play an integral
role in reversing language shift. However, it is clear that with these
new technologies come new challenges for the linguist. The Second
Cambridge Language Endangerment Conference invites researchers to
bring forward their ideas for tackling these issues: to share
experiences from the field, to consider how these new resources might
best be applied, as well as the problems that they can bring, to
reassess more traditional techniques in light of new technologies and
to work with a view towards achieving a practicable synthesis of old
and new methodologies. At this critical time, our Conference seeks to
ignite the debate as to what, if indeed anything, new technologies
have to offer the fields of documentation, revitalization and
maintenance, and how the research community might seek to enhance the
functionality of these resources in order to advance their application
beyond mere superficies.

Abstracts (200 words maximum) are due by Thursday 15 March 2012 and
should be sent to the conference organisers, Mari Jones
(mcj11 at cam.ac.uk) and Christopher Connolly (cpc37 at cam.ac.uk) Further
details may be found on the conference website:

http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1688/
____________________________________________

Dr Mari Jones

Reader in French Linguistics and Language Change
Fellow, Director of Studies and Tutor of Peterhouse
Peterhouse,
Cambridge  CB2 1RD

Tel: 01223 330859