Belew colloquium

January 31, 2022

The 2021-2022 colloquium series continues on Monday, February 7, with a talk by Anna Belew (Endangered Languages Project & University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), held via Zoom at 3:10pm. The talk is entitled "Ten Years Beyond the Ancestral Code: Growing Into a Model for Sociolinguistic Documentation," and the abstract is as follows:

Reflecting on the ten years since the 2012 Workshop on Sociolinguistic Documentation in Sub-Saharan Africa, this talk will explore work and ideas at the intersection of language documentation, revitalization, and sociolinguistics. Documentary linguistics has traditionally focused on describing and recording the structure of a single lexico-grammatical code (or bounded "language"). However, as argued by Childs, Good, and Mitchell (2014), in their report on the aforementioned 2012 workshop, the documentation of sociolinguistic contexts is equally crucial - especially since these contexts are generally more fragile, and more endangered, than languages themselves. This talk will share findings from the author's sociolinguistic documentation work in Iyasa-speaking communities in Cameroon; explore the challenges of forging viable, useful, and ethical paths in this relatively new field of study; reflect on how sociolinguistic documentation can lead to better language revitalization planning; and share lessons learned and suggestions for others interested in this type of work. Finally, this talk will touch on how the skills and knowledge of documentary and/or sociolinguists can be applied to career paths outside of academia.