FEL XVI Conference Call: Globalisation, Technology and New Media - Auckland NZ

[Nicholas Ostler]

LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY: GLOBALISATION, TECHNOLOGY & NEW MEDIA

12 – 15 September 2012 AUT University Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The XVI Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages will
take place from 12th to the 15th September, 2012 in Auckland,
Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is co-sponsored by the Auckland University of
Technology and Te Ipukarea, the National Ma-ori Institute.

Theme

Since the beginning of the millennium unprecedented substantial social
changes have been taking place across the world driven by technology,
new media and social media networking. The global diffusion of ideas
and values linked to globalisation has become synonymous with the
weakening of historical and traditional linguistic ties and their
replacement by loose connections to consumerism and capitalism. Old
traditions perish and new ones evolve. In this world, everything is
becoming increasingly ‘mediatised’, with the Web allowing all of us to
be publishers and social media enabling everyone to be agents of
public communication; from phone to Facebook and from SMS text to
Twitter. What was once the language of private sphere is now more and
more very likely to take place in a more public one e.g. the
Facebook/Bebo arena, in an exchange of written messages as we perform
our relationships with each other in front of a perceived audience.
The private, intimate, oral domains that have traditionally been the
base of endangered languages in the face of hostility in the public
sphere are being opened up to more public modes of communication with
literacy as an important currency.

We need to ask:

·What will the linguistic impact of this shift towards the
‘mediatisation’ of intimate conversation eventually be on endangered
languages?

·Will we see new patterns of ‘digital diglossia’, leading to a decline
in the previously private domains where it used to be ‘safe’,
‘acceptable’, ‘not controversial’, ‘natural’ to use the minority and
endangered languages?

·How do technology and new media impact on endangered languages?

However, globalisation can also be seen as a necessary step in the
evolution of mankind, bearing the potential for growth, preservation
of identity, fostering interdependence and forging new cultural
hybrids.

Or, to view globalisation positively, can technology and new media act
as positive and transformative catalysts in safeguarding endangered
languages?

Over the years, technology from the tape recorder to digital archiving
has become increasingly useful and has been universally deployed in
documentation of endangered languages. What are the new possibilities
in the 21st century?

·How can technology and new media be exploited in the following:

o the teaching and learning of endangered languages?
o material development?
o the creation of new opportunities for endangered languages?

o the creation of new spaces for endangered languages?

·How have the mass media (as radio, television), and new media (as
mobile phones, the internet) affected the image of endangered
languages, or given them new voices?

·What potential do the creative industries have for endangered languages?

Important dates:

23 April 2012

Abstract submission deadline

Abstracts (no more than 250-words) to be sent in English as a MS word
document (.doc). Please include up to FIVE keywords or phrases, author
names, affiliation, postal address and telephone number of leading
author

14 May 2012

Notification of acceptance or rejection of paper Registration opens

You can register and pay online using Mastercard or Visa

01 July 2012

Full papers due

In case of acceptance, the full paper will be due.
Note: It is a condition of speaking at the conference that authors
submit a digital copy of their paper by the deadline in MS Word.
Further details on the format of text will be specified to the
authors.

12 – 14 September

Conference

15 September

Cultural Excursion – pending registrations

Important addresses:

All abstracts and papers should be emailed as attachments to all of
these addresses: Conference Co-Chairs –

tkaai at aut.ac.nz (Tania Ka’ai),molaoire at aut.ac.nz(Muiris O’Laoire)

FEL Conference Secretary –

hywel.lewis at hotmail.co.uk(Hywel Glyn Lewis )