New vistas: The intersection of endangered languages and language change at the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics

新前景：第23届国际历史语言学会议上濒危语言与语言变迁的交集

• 批准号: 1649065
• 负责人: Bridget Drinka
• 金额: $ 2.02万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at San Antonio
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1649065&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: New; vistas; intersection; endangered; languages

Scientists estimate that at least half of the 7,000 languages worldwide will cease to be spoken by the end of the current century. Statistics published in 2016 by Glottolog, an online reference guide to the languages of the world, notes that this represents 242 distinct language families and 188 families with only one member ("isolates"). Scientific knowledge of how languages are related to one another and how languages change (known as "historical linguistics") has focused primarily on one language family, the Indo-European family, which includes English, Spanish, among others. How do studies of other language families, particularly those that are endangered, inform scholarly research about the way languages change? And how does the field of historical linguistics advance scientific understanding of endangered languages? This workshop will address these two questions as part of an international conference on historical linguistics. Broader impacts include funding to support the participation of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Broader impacts also include dissemination through the inclusion of online materials which will widen access, and submission of select conference papers to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. The University of Texas at San Antonio will host the 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23). Bridget Drinka, along with collaborator Patience Epps, of the University of Texas at Austin, will organize a conference program that includes a special focus on endangered languages and historical linguistics. ICHL 23 will include plenary speakers and discussants, drawing from endangered language researchers who comprehensively represent different geographic regions, language families, and typological diversity. The speakers will bring a breadth of methodological and theoretical expertise relating to the study of language change, spanning traditional reconstruction, approaches to language contact, phylogenetic methods, and other perspectives. Additional presentations at the conference will touch on the intersection of endangered language study and historical linguistics. Participating researchers will include junior scholars whose participation will be funded by this award. ICHL 23 will focus attention on the exciting new directions in which these fields are moving. A relatively recent subfield of linguistics, language documentation has been gaining ground in recent years. As language documentation continues to develop its depth of engagement with and contribution to other subfields, the value of this area amongst scholars and members of the general public will grow. Likewise, the subfield of historical linguistics has much to gain from the exciting new directions offered by work in underexplored language families and regions of the world. These new vistas of exploration promise to deliver fresh perspectives and innovative approaches to the discipline of historical linguistics, which will benefit significantly from this reinvigoration.

科学家估计，到本世纪末，全世界 7000 种语言中至少有一半将停止使用。世界语言在线参考指南 Glottolog 于 2016 年发布的统计数据指出，这代表了 242 个不同的语系和 188 个只有一个成员（“孤立语”）的语系。关于语言如何相互关联以及语言如何变化的科学知识（称为“历史语言学”）主要集中在一个语系——印欧语系，其中包括英语、西班牙语等。 对其他语系（尤其是濒危语系）的研究如何为有关语言变化方式的学术研究提供信息？ 历史语言学领域如何促进对濒危语言的科学理解？作为历史语言学国际会议的一部分，本研讨会将解决这两个问题。 更广泛的影响包括资助研究生和博士后的参与。更广泛的影响还包括通过纳入将扩大访问范围的在线材料进行传播，以及提交将在同行评审期刊上发表的精选会议论文。德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校将主办第 23 届国际历史语言学会议 (ICHL 23)。 布里奇特·德林卡 (Bridget Drinka) 与德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的合作者帕蒂斯·埃普斯 (Patience Epps) 将组织一个会议计划，其中特别关注濒危语言和历史语言学。 ICHL 23 将包括来自濒危语言研究人员的全体发言者和讨论者，他们全面代表了不同地理区域、语系和类型多样性。 演讲者将带来与语言变化研究相关的广泛的方法论和理论专业知识，涵盖传统重建、语言接触方法、系统发育方法和其他观点。 会议上的其他演讲将涉及濒危语言研究和历史语言学的交叉点。参与研究的研究人员将包括由该奖项资助的青年学者。 ICHL 23 将重点关注这些领域正在发展的令人兴奋的新方向。语言文献作为语言学的一个相对较新的子领域，近年来一直在不断发展。随着语言文献继续发展与其他子领域的接触和贡献的深度，该领域在学者和公众中的价值将会增长。同样，历史语言学子领域也可以从世界上尚未开发的语系和地区的工作所提供的令人兴奋的新方向中获益匪浅。这些新的探索前景有望为历史语言学学科提供新的视角和创新的方法，这将从这种复兴中受益匪浅。