Conference on Documenting Indigenous Languages to Enhance Phonological and Phonetic Theories and to Improve Broader Impacts

语言的一个重要方面是特定语言的声音系统和模式。事实上，像英语和西班牙语这样的语言只包含了辅音、元音的一个子集，以及它们可以组合的不同方式。为了更好地理解人类在声音（语音学）方面可以产生和感知什么，以及这些声音是如何组织和模式的（音韵学），需要调查、记录和分析与英语和西班牙语不同的声音和模式。该项目将使会议能够提高对人类如何产生、感知和组织这些不同语言的语音和音系的科学理解，重点关注以其多样性而闻名的地理区域，以及在面临语言濒危的情况下迫切需要记录这种语言多样性。该项目的目标是将研究墨西哥和中美洲语言多样性的土著和非土著专家聚集在一起。本次研讨会是“墨西哥和中美洲音响系统（SSMCA 3）”的第三次迭代，将于2018年10月在马萨诸塞大学阿姆赫斯特分校举行。演讲者将介绍关于该地区各种语言的未被充分描述和分析的声音系统的科学发现。除了特邀演讲人的全体演讲、投稿演讲和海报外，会议还将包括两个圆桌会议。第一次圆桌会议专门讨论促进土著和非土著学者之间合作的有效手段。随着土著语言使用者成为语言学家的训练，语言科学取得了巨大的智力进步；这将寻求继续这一进步，重点是语音和音系。第二次圆桌会议的重点是许多语文文献项目的广泛影响，并将提出将语文文献翻译成教学材料的有效方法，这些材料可在学校中使用，以发展和促进土著语文的读写能力，并在土著社区中继续使用。此外，SSMCA 3将产生四个更广泛的影响：(1)促进土著和非土著语言学家在记录土著语言方面的学术互动和合作；(2)促进对墨西哥和中美洲未被描述和未被描述的语言的记录；(3)宣传维护墨西哥和中美洲土著语言的价值，以及将其纳入公共教育的必要性；(4)向任何感兴趣的人开放访问在线会议的所有演示文稿和材料。

An important dimension of language is the sound system and patterns of a given language. In fact, languages like English and Spanish include only a subset of the possible sounds of consonants, vowels, and the different ways they can combine. A greater understanding of what humans can produce and perceive in terms of sounds (phonetics) and how these sounds are organized and patterned (phonology) relies on investigation, documentation, and analysis of languages with different sounds and patterns than English and Spanish. This project will enable a conference to increase scientific understanding of how humans produce, perceive, and organize the phonetics and phonology of these diverse languages, focusing on a geographic region well-known for both its diversity and the urgent need to document this linguistic diversity in the face of language endangerment.The goal of this project is to bring together indigenous and non-indigenous experts who study the linguistic diversity of the languages of Mexico and Central America. This workshop, the third iteration of "Sound Systems of Mexico and Central America (SSMCA 3)" will be held in October, 2018 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Speakers will present scientific findings of the under-described and under-analyzed sound systems of the diverse languages of this part of the world. Besides plenary presentations from invited speakers, contributed presentations, and posters, the conference will include two roundtables. The first roundtable is devoted to discussing effective means of fostering collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous scholars. The language sciences have seen tremendous intellectual advancement with the training of speakers of indigenous languages as linguists; this will seek to continue that advancement with a focus on phonetics and phonology. The second roundtable is focused on a broader impact of many language documentation projects, and will present effective means of translating language documentation into pedagogical materials that can be used in the schools to develop and promote literacy in indigenous languages and to maintain their use in indigenous communities. Additionally, SSMCA 3 will have four broader impacts: (1) promoting scholarly interaction and collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous linguists in the task of documenting indigenous languages, (2) advancing the documentation of the un-described and under-described languages of Mexico and Central America, (3) publicizing the value of maintaining the indigenous languages of Mexico and Central America and the necessity of incorporating their use into public education, and (4) providing open access to all the presentations and materials from the conference online to any interested person.