Endangered Language Documentation

3/30/2017 4:00 PM

Endangered Language Documentation
The Disruptive Force of Endangered Language Documentation on Linguistics and BeyondTHURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017, 4 – 5PM EDT
Location PAIS 290
University Event Topic Lectures & Meetings
School Emory College
Department/Organization Center for Mind Brain and Culture
Building/Room Psychology Building, 36 Eagle Row #270, Atlanta, GA 30322
Meeting Organizer/Sponsor Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture
Speaker/Presenter Shobhana Chelliah (Linguistics, University of North Texas)
Cost FREE
Contact Name Tamara Beck
Contact Email cmbc@emory.edu
More Info / Register cmbc.emory.edu…

Language Documentation is a reborn, refashioned, and reenergized subfield of linguistics motivated by the urgent task of creating a record of the world’s fast disappearing languages. In addition to producing resources for communities interested in language and culture preservation, maintenance, and revitalization, language documentation continues to produce data that challenge and improve linguistic theory. A case in point is a pattern of participant marking, i.e. ways that speakers indicate who does what to whom in a sentence, in the endangered languages of the Tibeto-Burman region (Northeast India). From current typological studies we expect one of three participant marking patterns and these are based on purely syntactic factors. From very small languages in and around the Himalayan region we discover that that there is a possible fourth pattern based not on syntax but on information structure and pragmatics – a game changing discovery for syntactic and typological theory. Endangered language data also provides data on how humans represent and interact with their environment and through this data provide a window into human cognition. Looking again at Tibeto-Burman, we find languages with complex systems of directional marking which, in the simplest sense, indicate the direction in which an activity is or will be performed. However, directionals are metaphorically extended to express movement through time and social or psychological space. Appropriate usage requires knowledge of social conventions and the cultural attribution of relative prestige of locations. Such data requires us to revisit theories of spatial cognition.


Back to Events...

 

DIGITAL ISSUE 

03_24-Cover-NMACC-W.jpg

 

eKhabar

Sign up for our weekly newsletter
eKhabar

        

Potomac_wavesmedia Banner ad.png 

TrophyPoint-Webads-200x200-4.jpg

  NRSPAY_Khabar-Website_2x2_Ad.gif

Krishnan Co WebBanner.jpg

Raj&Patel-CPA-Web-Banner.jpg

Embassy Bank_gif.gif 

MedRates-Banner-11-23.jpg

DineshMehta-CPA-Banner-0813.jpg