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

Organisers

Mari Jones (Dept. of French, University of Cambridge)

Oliver Mayeux (Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge)

Damien Rooney, (Dept. of French, University of Bristol)

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