CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
The XVI Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages will take place from 12th to the 15th September, 2012 in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is co-sponsored by the Auckland University of Technology and Te Ipukarea, the National Ma-ori Institute.
Theme
Since the beginning of the millennium unprecedented substantial social changes have been taking place across the world driven by technology, new media and social media networking. The global diffusion of ideas and values linked to globalisation has become synonymous with the weakening of historical and traditional linguistic ties and their replacement by loose connections to consumerism and capitalism. Old traditions perish and new ones evolve. In this world, everything is becoming increasingly ‘mediatised’, with the Web allowing all of us to be publishers and social media enabling everyone to be agents of public communication; from phone to Facebook and from SMS text to Twitter. What was once the language of private sphere is now more and more very likely to take place in a more public one e.g. the Facebook/Bebo arena, in an exchange of written messages as we perform our relationships with each other in front of a perceived audience.
The private, intimate, oral domains that have traditionally been the base of endangered languages in the face of hostility in the public sphere are being opened up to more public modes of communication with literacy as an important currency.
We need to ask:
·What will the linguistic impact of this shift towards the ‘mediatisation’ of intimate conversation eventually be on endangered languages?
·Will we see new patterns of ‘digital diglossia’, leading to a decline in the previously private domains where it used to be ‘safe’, ‘acceptable’, ‘not controversial’, ‘natural’ to use the minority and endangered languages?
·How do technology and new media impact on endangered languages?
However, globalisation can also be seen as a necessary step in the evolution of mankind, bearing the potential for growth, preservation of identity, fostering interdependence and forging new cultural hybrids.
Or, to view globalisation positively, can technology and new media act as positive and transformative catalysts in safeguarding endangered languages?
Over the years, technology from the tape recorder to digital archiving has become increasingly useful and has been universally deployed in documentation of endangered languages. What are the new possibilities in the 21st century?
·How can technology and new media be exploited in the following:
o the teaching and learning of endangered languages?
o material development?
o the creation of new opportunities for endangered languages?
o the creation of new spaces for endangered languages?
·How have the mass media (as radio, television), and new media (as mobile phones, the internet) affected the image of endangered languages, or given them new voices?
·What potential do the creative industries have for endangered languages?
Important dates:
23 April 2012
Abstract submission deadline
Abstracts (no more than 250-words) to be sent in English as a MS word document (.doc). Please include up to FIVE keywords or phrases, author names, affiliation, postal address and telephone number of leading author
14 May 2012
Notification of acceptance or rejection of paper Registration opens
You can register and pay online using Mastercard or Visa
01 July 2012
Full papers due
In case of acceptance, the full paper will be due.
Note: It is a condition of speaking at the conference that authors submit a digital copy of their paper by the deadline in MS Word.
Further details on the format of text will be specified to the authors.
12 – 14 September
Conference
15 September
Cultural Excursion – pending registrations
Important addresses:
All abstracts and papers should be emailed as attachments to all of these addresses: Conference Co-Chairs –
(Tania Ka’ai),molaoire@aut.ac.nz(Muiris O’Laoire)
FEL Conference Secretary –
hywel.lewis@hotmail.co.uk(Hywel Glyn Lewis )
- Date Held:
- 12 – 15 September 2012
- Information:
- Since the beginning of the millennium unprecedented substantial social changes have been taking place across the world driven by technology, new media and social media networking. The global diffusion of ideas and values linked to globalisation has become synonymous with the weakening of historical and traditional linguistic ties and their replacement by loose connections to consumerism and capitalism. Old traditions perish and new ones evolve. In this world, everything is becoming increasingly ‘mediatised’, with the Web allowing all of us to be publishers and social media enabling everyone to be agents of public communication; from phone to Facebook and from SMS text to Twitter. What was once the language of private sphere is now more and more very likely to take place in a more public one e.g. the Facebook/Bebo arena, in an exchange of written messages as we perform our relationships with each other in front of a perceived audience. The private, intimate, oral domains that have traditionally been the base of endangered languages in the face of hostility in the public sphere are being opened up to more public modes of communication with literacy as an important currency.
- Website:
- http://
