Please join us in Cobb Hall 202 and on Zoom on Friday, February 23 at 3:30 PM for the next LVC meeting of the quarter. Dr. Anna Belew will be talking her sociolinguistic findings in Iyasa-speaking communities in Cameroon and its implications for language documentation and revitalization.

Ten Years Beyond the Ancestral Code: Growing Into a Model for Sociolinguistic Documentation

Reflecting on the ten years since the 2014 publication of a report on the Workshop on Sociolinguistic Documentation in Sub-Saharan Africa, this talk will explore work and ideas at the intersection of language documentation, revitalization, and sociolinguistics. Documentary linguistics has traditionally focused on describing and recording the structure of a single lexico-grammatical code (or bounded “language”). However, as argued by Childs, Good, and Mitchell (2014), in their report on the aforementioned 2012 workshop, the documentation of sociolinguistic contexts is equally crucial – especially since these contexts are generally more fragile, and more endangered, than languages themselves. This talk will share findings from the author’s sociolinguistic documentation work in Iyasa-speaking communities in Cameroon; explore the challenges of forging viable, useful, and ethical paths in this relatively new field of study; reflect on how sociolinguistic documentation can lead to better language revitalization planning; and share lessons learned and suggestions for others interested in this type of work.