Athabascan Languages Conference 2003 to be held in Arcata, California

国家科学基金会将支持阿萨巴斯卡语言会议。会议将于2003年6月5日至7日在加利福尼亚州阿尔卡塔的洪堡州立大学举行。它将结合联合收割机邀请文件，讲习班，一般性会议，并由当地美洲土著社区主办的文化活动。与会者将报告最近和正在进行的研究，并将讨论新出现的趋势和语言学工作的范式对阿萨巴斯卡语言。邀请的论文和许多演讲的重点将是确定和分析已经发生或正在发生的语言变化，因为这些不成文的土著语言经历了功能上的转变，从其社区的主要交流和社会团结模式转变为在特殊社会背景下有意识地使用的族裔身份标志。一个研讨会将考虑当阿萨巴斯卡语言在大学课堂上正式教授并编入教材和参考书时，功能和结构发生的变化。另一个将考虑历史和当代的变化已经发生在复杂的形态学的阿萨巴斯卡语动词作为功能的变化，在语言使用中的结果。适应和语言结构和使用的变化是重要的主题，不仅语言学家，而且在美国和加拿大的成千上万的阿萨巴斯卡语社区的成员。这些社区正在努力在一个绝大多数讲英语的社会中保留其文化和语言遗产。通过了解阿萨巴斯卡语言-甚至包括纳瓦霍语这样广泛使用的语言-正在发生的变化，可以改进语言教育和其他保留或振兴努力，因为这些语言从主要在儿童时期作为第一语言习得，到主要在学校和成人生活中作为第二语言学习。与会者将在更清楚地了解“保存”意味着什么的情况下，重新开展语文振兴工作。

The National Science Foundation will support the Athabascan Languages Conference. The conference will be held at Humboldt State University, in Arcata, CA, on June 5-7, 2003. It will combine invited papers, workshops, a general session, and cultural activities hosted by local Native American communities. Participants will report on recent and ongoing research, and will discuss emerging trends and paradigms of linguistic work on Athabascan languages. The focus of the invited papers and many of the presentations will be on the identification and analysis of the linguistic changes that have taken place, or are in process, as these unwritten indigenous languages undergo a shift in function from being the primary mode of communication and social solidarity in their communities to being a consciously used marker of ethnic identity in special social contexts. One workshop will consider the changes in function and structure that take place when an Athabascan language is formally taught in college classrooms and codified in pedagogical materials and reference books. Another will consider historical and contemporary changes that have taken place in the complex morphology of the Athabaskan verb as the result of functional shifts in language use.Adaptation and change in language structure and use are important topics not only to linguists but also to the thousands of members of Athabascan-speaking communities in the United States and Canada. These communities are struggling to retain their cultural and linguistic heritage in a society that is overwhelmingly English-speaking. Language education and other retention or revitalization efforts can be improved by understanding of the changes that are taking place in Athabascan languages - even in such widely spoken examples as Navajo - as they move from mainly being acquired as first languages in childhood to mainly being learned as second languages in school and adult life. Conference participants will return to their language revitalization efforts with a clearer sense of what "preservation" entails.