Language Contact and Documentation: Contacto Linguistico y Documentacion

2 Bernard Comrie & Lucía Golluscio
volume has been enriched with two relevant articles in documentary linguistics:
Woodbury’s comprehensive study of language documentation originally
published in English (Woodbury 2011) and Evans’ theoretical and methodological
approach to the complexity of social meanings and functions of Aboriginal
multilingualism as shown in his striking analysis of a multilingual practice of
verbal art in northern Australia (Evans 2011). This welcome decision will not
only broaden the ongoing discussion within the Spanish-speaking academic
community but opens the way for students and members of the indigenous
communities working in language documentation and revitalization to access
current discussions in their field of interest. Furthermore, it strengthens one of
the main objectives of the Buenos Aires symposium and the resultant volume,
that is, to contribute to positioning academic production in Spanish and English
on equal ground.
1 Objectives
This volume aims to contribute to the ongoing theoretical and methodological
discussion on the study of past and present relationships between languages
and peoples, language change, and areal-typological phenomena, with special
emphasis on South America. In addition, it envisages the establishment of a
strong collaborative network among researchers from different countries and
disciplines, speech communities, and academic programs committed to the
documentation, description, and preservation of “small languages” in the
world. We hope that the volume will help to clarify and legitimize the function
of language and culture documentation and archiving in durable formats in
South America, highlighting the relevance and urgency of these tasks in contexts
of prolonged socio-political, economic and cultural inequality; that it will
promote and disseminate among potential donors and users the ongoing initiatives
of open digital archives for language resources throughout this region
and the rest of the world, and foster discussion and the search for consensus
about access and other ethical issues.
2 Topics
The general guidelines that oriented the presentations and discussion include:
– the contribution of documentary linguistics and field linguistics to the
knowledge of past and present relationships among languages and peoples:
theoretical and methodological implications;