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

该项目将汇集来自世界各地的领先学者，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振兴研究的关键挑战，作为2021年语言文献和保护国际会议（ICLDC）的一部分。目前，世界上7000种语言中有一半以上面临消失的危险，其中至少有170种在美国，因此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。鉴于这一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伙伴关系，以克服最关键的挑战，包括除其他外，（至少是一些）大量濒危的手语和口语的文献，几乎没有文献，收集的视听文献数量之间的巨大差距，以及可用的这些数据的传输量（即，所谓的“转录瓶颈”）。尽管存在这些大规模挑战，但旨在应对这些挑战的伙伴关系仍然相对较少。因此，该项目将在语言学家、语言社区成员和其他学科的学者之间展开对话，为解决语言文献和保护方面的关键挑战制定强大而可靠的解决方案。国家科学基金会的支持将使一系列有针对性的讲习班和圆桌讨论会能够围绕发起和促进战略伙伴关系的各个方面将利益攸关方聚集在一起。会议还将举办一场特别的互动全体会议，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进行对话，以应对关键挑战。自2009年成立以来，ICLDC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，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，为扩大语言科学的参与提供了机会，这是本次会议更广泛的影响之一。ICLDC为高度多样化的受众提供非正式科学教育和培训的机会，其中包括尖端语言文献的新方法和最佳实践，并跨越传统学科界限。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最重要场所之一。该奖项反映了NSF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.