February 23, 2024 | 3:30PM
Cobb 202
The Workshop on Language Variation & Change will be having its next meeting this Friday, February 23, from 3:30 to 5:00 PM to hear Dr. Anna Belew present a talk titled “Ten Years Beyond the Ancestral Code: Growing Into a Model for Sociolinguistic Documentation” (abstract below) about her sociolinguistic findings in Iyasa-speaking communities in Cameroon and its implications for language documentation and revitalization.
Dr. Belew will be joining us via Zoom (Meeting ID: 960 8439 0143, Passcode: 819581), but attendees are more than welcome to join us in-person in Cobb 202 to watch her presentation.
As always, please visit the LVC website for more information about the workshop and our schedule this quarter. There are a number of slots still open, so if you’re interested in presenting in the Spring, please reach out to me (sjiries@uchicago.edu).
Ten Years Beyond the Ancestral Code: Growing Into a Model for Sociolinguistic Documentation
Reflecting on the ten years since the 2014 publication of a report on the 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.