The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that as many as 56 million people around the world are displaced by war, disaster, environmental degradation, poverty, and other causes. Millions of speakers of endangered languages are among these displaced people, and linguists around the world increasingly find themselves working with speakers living outside their region of origin. Yet, many best practices in linguistic research start with assumptions about language communities that are inapplicable to language spoken in diaspora contexts. The purpose of the meeting is to integrate multidisciplinary perspectives into linguistic research with diaspora communities and to discuss diaspora linguistics in its own right.

Submission Guidelines

We invite the submission of abstracts for 20-minute talks or poster presentations on the broad topic of diaspora linguistics, which might include, but is not limited to, language documentation, language description, the role of data from diaspora languages in constructing linguistic theories, collaboration with diaspora communities, contact languages, language variation and change, anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, community needs, and community organization. Please feel free to contact the organizing committee if you are unsure of whether your topic is compatible with the goals of the meeting. 

The body of the abstract, including figures and numbered examples, should be a maximum of one page in length; however, references can be included on a separate page. Abstracts should have one-inch margins and 11 or 12 point font and submissions should be anonymous.

Submissions should be submitted in PDF format.

The deadline for abstract submission is April 21, 2019. The committee will send decisions by April 28, 2019.

List of Topics

• Language documentation
• Language description
• Role of data from diaspora languages in constructing linguistic theories
• Collaboration with diaspora communities
• Contact languages
• Language variation and change
• Anthropological linguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Community needs
• Community organization

Committee

Organizing committee

• G. Aaron Broadwell
• Lauren Clemens
• Monica De Jesus Ramírez
• Jamilläh Rodriguez
• Michael Stoop
• Román Vidal López

Invited Speakers

• Maya Ravindranath Abthian​
• Marc Garellek
• Laura Kalin
• Daniel Kaufman
• Felipe H. Lopez
• Diane Shandy 
• Michal Temkin Martínez

Venue

The conference will be held as a weekend symposium alongside the 2019 LSA Summer Institute at the University of California, Davis. All sessions will be held in the Multipurpose Room of the Student Community Center.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to lclemens@albany.edu.