LSA 213: Language revitalization

Leanne Hinton | session 2 | TuTh 10:30 – 12:15, 2060 Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB)

This course focuses on methods of language revitalization, case studies of programs in language revitalization, and what the role is of linguists in language revitalization. After an overview including a review of factors leading to the loss of linguistic diversity and why this is problematic, we will look at how the choice of goals and methods must be determined. We will study language planning, and second-language learning programs such as community classes, bilingual education, literacy development and orthography design, immersion schools, college programs, and master-apprentice programs, language camps and family language programs. Included in the case studies will be Hebrew, Gaelic, and selected American Indian and Australian languages. The challenge of not just learning, but also using, an endangered language will be explored. The role of linguistic documentation in language revitalization will be examined, as well as other ways in which linguists find themselves working with and assisting communities and individuals in the process of language revitalization.

Reading: Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale, The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice and selected materials available online.

Areas of linguistics: Sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology