Date: 19-Sep-2011 - 28-Sep-2011
Location: Regensburg, Germany
Contact: Johannes Helmbrecht
Contact Email: johannes.helmbrechtsprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
Meeting URL: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/allgemeine-vergleichende-sprachwissenschaft/forschung/summerschool11/index.html

Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation

Meeting Description:

This international summer school will introduce advanced students of linguistics (BA, MA and doctorate level of linguistics) into the theory and methods of language documentation. The goal is to acquire the knowledge and competence to conduct one's own documentation projects with regard to endangered languages.

Dear list members,

There will be an International Summer School on the 'Theory and Methods
of Language Documentation' in September 2011 at the University of Regensburg, Germany. The major goal of this summer school is to introduce advanced students of linguistics (BA, MA and doctorate level of linguistics) into the theory and methods of language documentation. The goal is to acquire the knowledge and competence to conduct one's own documentation projects with regard to endangered languages. Funding of this summer school will be provided mainly by the Volkswagen Foundation. Additional support comes from the Vielberth Foundation of the University of Regensburg.

What is language documentation?
Language documentation has become a sub-discipline of linguistics since the mid-90ies when linguists across the continents started to look for answers against the massive disappearance of minority languages all over the world of which no records and no descriptions such as grammars and dictionaries exist. The main goal of language documentation is to create a representative corpus of recordings or texts which are presented and processed in a way that non-speakers of this language can understand these recordings and texts. These corpuses of endangered languages allow linguists and other researchers of the humanities to understand how the language was used within the specific social and cultural context of the language community even when there are no fluent speakers left in the next decades.

Language documentation and corpus linguistics?
This Summer School will include a workshop 'Language Documentation meets Corpus Linguistics: how to exploit DOBES corpora for descriptive linguistics and language typology?' This workshop will take place at the end of the summer school (September 27-28, 2011). The goal of this workshop is to bring together documentation linguists and corpus linguists in order to discuss and explore the question how DOBES corpora - and there are more than 50 digital corpuses right now in the archive of the MPI in Nijmegen- can be used and exploited for descriptive (and typological) purposes by means of corpus linguistic methods. This workshop is open to all participants of the summer school. There will be a separate announcement for this workshop on DOBESList, LingTyp, and LinguistList.

Where and when?
The summer school will last 10 days (including the two days workshop) from September 19-28, 2011 at the University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, D-93053 Regensburg. Details of the location and directions will be given on the official website of the summer school:
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/allgemeine-vergleichende-sprachwissenschaft/forschung/summerschool11/index.html.

Who and what?
The most important aspects of language documentation will be covered in seminar-like teaching units which alternate in focusing on more theoretical aspects and on more practical/ technical aspects of language documentation. For most of the topics to be dealt with there are practice units which allow students to apply the methods and tools on real language data and with real Native speakers of mostly non-Indo-European languages. The program can be summarized as follows (for details see the summer school website.)

Monday, 9/19: overviews will be given on a) language documentation, b) language endangerment and language death, c) what it means to work in the language community, and d) the technical side language documentation including archiving principles and tools.

Tuesday, 9/20: What has to be documented? and How to produce, process, and edit audio and video recordings?

Wednesday, 9/21: How to write a grammatical sketch? and How to create a lexical database?

Thursday, 9/22: How to transcribe the recordings with Praat, Elan,Transcriber etc.? and How to develop a practical orthography?

Friday, 9/23: How to annotate and gloss audio and video recordings in Elan and in Shoebox/ Toolbox?

Saturday, 9/24: How to upload/download data in the digital archive? And How to assign metadata to the sessions?

Sunday, 9/25: Regensburg highlights - sightseeing in and around Regensburg, and more...

Monday, 9/26: How to stabilize and revitalize an endangered language, and How to develop teaching materials?

Tuesday/Wednesday, 9/27-28: Workshop: 'Language Documentation Meets Corpus Linguistics'

All teaching units will be taught by experienced documentary linguists and experts in the field. The practice sessions will be held in small groups allowing the students to apply the methods and tools together with Native speakers of various Non-Indo-European languages.

Students/ participants:
The summer school will admit about 30 advanced students in linguistics (BA, MA or doctorate level). There is a tuition fee of 100€ for each student. However, the Volkswagen Foundation has provided the summer school with the possibility to award 10 stipends of max. 600€ to students who have unduly high travel expenses or an unduly low budget. The workshop is free of charge.

Students who want to participate in the summer school have to apply.
Please send an e-mail to the organizers Annette Endruschat (Annette.Endruschatfreenet.de) or Johannes Helmbrecht (Johannes.Helmbrechtsprachlit.uni-regensburg.de) containing the following information:

- Name,
- Address and contact information,
- Position and academic affiliation,
- CV (as attachment),
- if you intend to apply for a stipend, please add a short letter of motivation.

Detailed information with regard to accommodation, public transportation, cultural events and nightlife in Regensburg will be found later on on the summer school website:
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/allgemeine-vergleichende-sprachwissenschaft/forschung/summerschool11/index.html

Important dates:
May 31, 2011: application deadline
June 15, 2011: notification of admittance to the summer school and - if applicable - notification of the award of a stipend

Organizers:
Principal organizers are Annette Endruschat of the ''Institut für Romanistik'' and Johannes Helmbrecht, Chair of General and Comparative Linguistics.

PD Dr. phil. habil. Annette Endruschat
Universität Regensburg
Institut für Romanistik
Universitätsstr.31
D-93053 Regensburg

Tel.:++49/0941/943-3378
Fax:++49/0941/943-813931
http://www.philologos.de/philologoi/ade/index.html
annette.endruschatsprachlit.uni-regensburg.de

Professor Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften
Universität Regensburg
Universitätsstr. 31
D-93053 Regensburg

Tel.:++49/0941/943-3388
Tel.:++49/0941/943-3387 (Sekretariat)
Fax: ++49/0941/943-3329
johannes.helmbrechtsprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/allgemeine-vergleichende-sprachwissenschaft/avs/index.html

Questions, comments, etc. can be sent also to our student assistants
Johanna Spieler (Johanna.Spielerstud.uni-regensburg.de),
Ilenia Tonetti (Ilenia.Tonettistud.uni-regensburg.de),
Marina Leiger (Marina.Leigerstud.uni-regensburg.de),
Sarah Thanner (SarahThannergmx.net) and
Katharina Knuffmann (katharina.knuffmannweb.de).

The summer school website can be found under the following URL:
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/sprache-literatur-kultur/allgemeine-vergleichende-sprachwissenschaft/forschung/summerschool11/index.html