The 2021 International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation: Identifying and Fostering Relationships to Overcome Critical Challenges

作为2021年国际语言文献与保护会议（ICLDC）的一部分，该项目将汇集来自世界各地的顶尖学者，探讨如何发展新的战略伙伴关系（并促进正在进行的伙伴关系），以帮助克服文献语言学和语言复兴研究中的关键挑战。目前，世界上7000种语言中有一半以上面临消失的危险——仅在美国就至少有170种语言——迫切需要为濒危语言创建一个持久的文献记录，并支持这些语言的教学。鉴于这种濒危语言危机的严重性，语言学家和语言社区必须寻求战略合作伙伴关系，以克服最严峻的挑战，其中包括为大量几乎没有文件的濒危手语和口语制作（至少部分）文件的艰巨任务，所收集的视听文件数量，以及这些可用数据的转录量（即所谓的“转录瓶颈”）。尽管存在这些大规模挑战，但致力于解决这些挑战的伙伴关系相对较少。因此，该项目将开启语言学家、语言社区成员和其他学科学者之间的对话，为解决语言文献和保护方面的重大挑战制定强有力的、可靠的解决方案。NSF的支持将促成一系列有针对性的研讨会和圆桌讨论，致力于将利益相关者聚集在一起，围绕发起和促进战略伙伴关系的各个方面。会议还将举办一场特别的互动式全体会议，其明确目的是将与会者聚集在一起，就如何重新重视确定和促进战略伙伴关系以应对重大挑战展开对话。自2009年成立以来，国际语言发展中心已成为推动濒危语言文献、维护和振兴奖学金的旗舰场所。参与者包括来自语言学、人类学、生物学、计算机科学和其他学科的本科生、研究生和教师。ICLDC还包括了大量来自历史上在科学领域代表性不足的群体的公民科学家，例如美洲原住民、阿拉斯加原住民、夏威夷原住民和其他太平洋岛民，这为扩大对语言科学的参与提供了机会，这是本次会议的更广泛影响之一。ICLDC为其高度多样化的受众提供了非正式科学教育和培训的机会，这些教育和培训包括前沿语言文献中的新方法和最佳实践，并且跨越了传统的学科界限。此外，该会议是传播语言文献和保护及相关学科研究成果的重要场所之一。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will bring together leading scholars from across the world to explore how developing new strategic partnerships (and fostering ongoing ones) can help overcome critical challenges in documentary linguistics and language revitalization research as part of the 2021 International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC). With more than half of the world's 7000 languages currently at risk of disappearing--at least 170 of them in the United States alone--there is an urgent need both to create an enduring documentary record of endangered languages and to support teaching and learning of those languages. Given the magnitude of this endangered language crisis, linguists and language communities must seek out strategic partnerships to overcome the most critical challenges, including among others the enormous task of producing (at least some) documentation for the vast number of endangered signed and spoken languages that have little to no documentation, the massive gap between the amount of audiovisual documentation collected, and the amount of transcriptions of these data that are available (i.e., the so-called "transcription bottleneck"). Despite these large-scale challenges, there are still relatively few partnerships that aim to address them. Thus, this project will open a dialogue between linguists, language community members, and scholars from other disciplines to forge robust and reliable solutions for addressing critical challenges in language documentation and conservation. NSF support will enable a series of targeted workshops and roundtable discussions devoted to bringing stakeholders together around various aspects of initiating and fostering strategic partnerships. The conference will also feature a special interactive plenary event with the express purpose of bringing together participants to create a dialogue about how a renewed focus on identifying and fostering strategic partnerships can be leveraged to meet critical challenges.Since its inception in 2009, ICLDC has become the flagship venue driving scholarship in the documentation, maintenance and revitalization of endangered languages. Participants include undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty from linguistics, anthropology, biology, computer science, 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.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.