Vital Voices: Linking Language and Wellbeing at the International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation

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"Wellbeing" is a state of the body and mind that encompasses the presence of positive moods and emotions, life satisfaction, fulfillment and positive functioning, and the absence of negative emotions like anxiety. Public health experts, policymakers and economists are coming to recognize the implications of wellbeing for society as a whole, as well as individuals, thanks to a growing set of results from cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental studies, including those noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Increasingly, researchers in several fields have noted a positive correlation between language maintenance and wellbeing in endangered language communities. While the nature of the connection between language and wellbeing remains the subject of much debate, the existence of a connection is not entirely unexpected, given the range of outcomes associated with wellbeing. In addition, languages encode knowledge systems, so language loss represents not only the loss of a communicative system, but also the loss of traditional knowledge systems. Importantly, traditional knowledge systems encode cultural practices related to well-being. Understanding the connections between language and wellbeing will potentially have implications for public health and policy and beyond, but also for language researchers, since traditional knowledge systems are among the most threatened domains of endangered language. Knowledge of esoteric domains such botanical classification and traditional medicines is forgotten well before basic vocabulary and language structure. Hence, these areas of traditional knowledge are precisely the areas which need to be prioritized by language documenters. This project will bring together leading scholars from across the world to explore connections between language and wellbeing as part of the 2017 International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC). Since its inception in 2009, ICLDC has become the flagship venue driving scholarship in the documentation, maintenance and revitalization of endangered and other languages. Participants include undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty from linguistics, anthropology, biology and other academic disciplines. ICLDC has also included a large number of citizen scientists from historically underrepresented groups in the sciences, such as Native Americans, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, offering opportunities for broadening participation in the language sciences as one of the broader impacts of this conference. ICLDC offers its highly diverse audience opportunities for informal science education and training that includes new methodologies and best practices in cutting edge language documentation and that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries. In addition, this conference serves as one of the foremost venues for the dissemination of research findings in language documentation and conservation and related disciplines.