Course Description
A fundamental property of human language is its diversity. Language diversity provides the basis for evaluating theories of language acquisition and yet acquisition data is only available for three percent of the world’s 6000+ languages. The accelerating decline in minority languages makes this decade the time to document the acquisition of under-studied languages. The goal of mass documentation requires a radical revision to the practice of language acquisition. This course provides participants with a community-based model of acquisition research that strengthens linguistic infrastructures while engaging with acquisition theories. This model of acquisition research is a work in progress so course participants will workshop ideas on topics ranging from community engagement to funding sources. Participants will prepare a grant application using community-based approaches. Session 1 provides an introduction to the scope and significance of linguistic diversity, and language documentation. Session 2 addresses practical issues in working with indigenous communities such as making initial contact and identifying relevant linguistic goals. Session 3 addresses the best practices in documenting child language that are tailored to the community’s linguistic needs. Session 4 will be devoted to efficient methods for extracting data and analyzing results.
Area Tags: Language Documentation, Acquisition, Psycholinguistics, Fieldwork, Typology, Language Preservation
(Session 1) Monday/Thursday 10:30-11:50
Location: ILC S331
Instructors: Clifton Pye & Pedro Mateo Pedro
Clifton Pye is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Kansas. He has documented the acquisition of indigenous languages in Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, including the Mayan languages K’iche’, Mam, Q’anjob’al, Chol and Teenek as well as the Otomanguean language Northern Pame. He has published articles on the acquisition of phonology, prosody, morphology, syntax and semantics as well as child directed speech. These publications include a chapter on the acquisition of Mayan languages in the book Mayan Languages (Routledge) and the book The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research (Chicago).
Pedro Mateo Pedro is an Assistant Professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto. He has documented the acquisition of Mayan languages of Guatemala: Mam, Ch’ol, Q’anjob’al, K’iche’, Awakateko, and Chuj. He is currently working on the revitalization of Itzaj, an endangered Mayan language of Guatemala. Some of his publications include his book The Acquisition of Inflection in Q’anjob’al Maya (John Benjamins) and recent publications on the acquisition of causatives and numeral classifiers in Q’anjob’al.
