Institute for Collaborative Language Research (CoLang/InField)

The 2014 Institute on Collaborative Language Research (InField/CoLang) will take place in Summer 2014 at UT Arlington, with Dr. Colleen Fitzgerald as Director, funded in part thanks to National Science Foundation grant BCS# 263939. The theme of the 2014 Institute will be oriented around Native American languages, but as with previous Institutes, there will be considerable international participation. The Institute takes place over a six-week period in the summer, in years alternating with the LSA Summer Institute. It offers an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students, practicing linguists, and indigenous community members to develop and refine skills and approaches to language documentation and revitalization. The Institute is designed to provide an opportunity for a diverse range of participants to become trained in a wide range of skills in community-centered language documentation.

The institute consists of two parts: the Workshops - two weeks of intensive workshops on the practice of documentary linguistics, followed by a field methods training practical course, which consists of a four-week apprenticeship in the application of linguistic science and technology to on-site empirical documentation (a.k.a. "field linguistics”). The two parts are integrated, as students who enroll in the field training are required to enroll in the preceding Workshops, thereby receiving an intensive course in documentary best practices before putting these skills to use. Participants may choose to enroll only in the two-week Workshops. In terms of scheduling, we will convene during the following time periods: Workshops: June 16-27 2014, followed by the Field Methods/Practicum: June 30 – July 25, 2014.