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Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics

 

The Ninth Cambridge Conference on Language Endangerment

Language Revitalisation: New speakers, new challenges, new linguistic forms

July 2nd 2019

 

 

Venue

Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DT

 

Organisers

 

Call for Papers

The main aim of language revitalisation is to set an endangered language back ‘on its feet’. Revitalisation strategies may be developed and implemented by linguists, the State, language activists and the speakers themselves. However, these strategies, which attempt to make the endangered language an attractive and useful resource for modern users, may result in the transformation of the endangered language rather than restoring it to its old self. This conference invites papers that reflect on these issues: What are the main challenges that face revitalising languages today and how do these differ from those faced by endangered languages? How realistic are the chances of returning an endangered language to its old domains (especially when, for pragmatic reasons, revitalisation campaigns tend to focus outside rather than inside the home)? What might the consequences of language revitalisation be in terms of the linguistic structure of the variety being revitalised? To what extent are ‘new-speakers’ in speech communities where an endangered language is being revitalised also agents of linguistic change? Can corpus planning ever completely undo the linguistic results of extensive interaction with the dominant language? Does language planning restore speech communities or does it transform them? Are ‘new-speakers’ ever at odds with ‘traditional’ speakers in terms of their geographical location, their social backgrounds, the nature of the variety they speak and even their reasons for speaking it? – and does this matter?

Abstracts: (200 words maximum) to be submitted via email to the organisers by April 7th 2019. Please include in the abstract document your name and your affiliation as you would like to see them in the programme.  

Paper format: 20 minutes + 10 minutes for questions

 

Registration

Please click here to register and book your place online

The standard fee is £45 with a reduced fee of £30 for students (proof of student status will need to be presented). This includes lunches and refreshments at the conference and a wine reception in the Scholars' Garden at Peterhouse. 

Please note that all bookings and payment have to be made via this website. We regret that there is no provision for delegates to pay on the day.   

Bookings that are not accompanied by payment will not be registered on the system.

The programme is available to download here.

A booklet containing abstracts for all of the papers to be given at the conference is available here.

 

Accommodation

The organisers are unable to arrange or help book accommodation. However, the following websites may be useful:

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