Athabascan Languages Conference 2003 to be held in Arcata, California

国家科学基金会将支持阿萨巴斯坎语言会议。会议将于2003年6月5日至7日在加利福尼亚州阿卡塔市的洪堡州立大学举行。它将结合邀请论文、研讨会、一般会议和由当地印第安人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，并将讨论阿萨巴斯坎语语言学工作的新趋势和范式。受邀论文和许多演讲的重点将是识别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正在经历功能的转变，从其社区中主要的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种族身份的标志。其中一个研讨会将考虑当阿萨巴斯坎语在大学课堂上正式教授并被编入教材和参考书中时所发生的功能和结构的变化。另一个将考虑历史和当代的变化，这些变化发生在阿萨巴斯坎语动词的复杂形态中，这是语言使用功能转变的结果。语言结构和使用的适应和变化不仅是语言学家的重要课题，也是美国和加拿大阿萨巴斯坎语社区成千上万成员的重要课题。这些社区正努力在一个以英语为主的社会中保留自己的文化和语言遗产。通过了解阿萨巴斯坎语正在发生的变化，语言教育和其他保留或振兴的努力可以得到改善——即使在纳瓦霍语这样广泛使用的例子中也是如此——这些语言从主要在童年时期作为第一语言获得，到主要在学校和成人生活中作为第二语言学习。与会者将带着对“保存”意味着什么的更清晰的认识回到他们的语言振兴工作中。

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.