Recognizing Relationships
The 7th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC)
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
March 4-7, 2021
COVID-19 Statement
Due to COVID-19, ICLDC 2021 will be held virtually. The ICLDC 7 organizers are excited about this year’s theme, and the possibilities for broad international discussion that an online conference can offer.
We are currently investigating what technologies we will use and how the conference will take shape and how we can accommodate time zone differences for presenters, as well as family and work obligations.
We look forward to your participation. Please “join” us!
Conference Theme: Recognizing Relationships
There are many critical challenges that endangered language documentation and conservation faces, some of which seem insurmountable, and despite linguists’ best efforts, many of the proposed solutions fall short. These challenges have been apparent to many communities, language activists and academic linguists since (or even before) the earliest public warnings of the “endangered language crisis” in the early 1990’s, and recognition of the great number of large-scale challenges has only become more apparent since.
One reason that many of the current solutions have not reached the level of success to which they have aspired is that the need to identify and/or foster relationships is often minimized or even ignored completely. Identifying and fostering relationships by taking the time to build understanding between stakeholders, learning about needs and skills that can be offered, and developing shared goals and outcomes are central to sustainable solutions for language documentation and conservation. These relationships go beyond those between communities and linguists and extend to multi-party relationships among linguists, communities, other academic fields, governmental and non-governmental organizations, educational and funding agencies, and many other individuals invested in the future of the language. There are also important intra-group relationships within these stakeholding groups (e.g., between members of an Indigenous community, or language workers documenting signed languages and those documenting spoken languages) as well as inter-group relationships between different Indigenous communities.
At ICLDC 2021 we propose to initiate a dialogue on how recognizing relationships can help overcome the many critical challenges in language documentation and language reclamation. We believe that this focus will lead to improved connections among academic linguists, various communities, researchers from other disciplines, educational practitioners, and many other stakeholders. We specifically aim to draw attention to the transformative power of recognizing relationships to overcome critical challenges.
Please note that information on this page is subject to change depending on the COVID-19 pandemic and planning changes.
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