Centering Justice in Language Work

The 8th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation (ICLDC 8)

Virtual Conference

March 2-5, 2023

Attention to aspects of justice as a social responsibility has been growing in many fields in recent years. Our field should be no exception: the reasons for language shift and loss worldwide are arguably tied to historical and contemporary injustices and inequality. Furthermore, issues of justice affecting speakers and language communities are not just linguistic: a growing body of research shows that linguistic justice intersects with justice in the environmental, health, legal, political, economic, and educational realms.

While the inherently sociopolitical nature of language work is evident to many practitioners, justice goals are often considered by-products that are secondary in importance to the more traditional scholastic aims of documentary linguistics. Therefore, we believe it is time for the field of language documentation and conservation to develop a framework that establishes justice as both the starting point and end goal of our work. How might such an approach reframe the traditional pursuits of documentation? Could it potentially invert the field’s current motivations and methodologies, asserting language justice as the ultimate goal, and traditional academic pursuits as an expected outcome of such work?

Our field has not yet held an international conversation on achieving justice within language documentation and conservation, what role language workers play in achieving justice in intersecting realms, and how justice can critically inform, and reform, best practices in language documentation and conservation work. We propose to make the ICLDC8 a venue for this critical and timely conversation. Importantly, we see ICLDC8 as an excellent opportunity for practitioners to build relationships and develop the social infrastructure necessary for working toward a justice-driven model of language work.

The conference program will feature Keynote presentations, Talk Story and Workshop sessions, papers, and posters. The He ʻŌlelo Ola Hilo Field Study, showcasing Hawaiian language K-20 immersion programs, will be integrated into the conference schedule.

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Opening Plenary Speaker: Noenoe K. Silva (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa)

Closing Plenary Speakers: Michal Temkin Martinez & Selda Delsooz (Boise State University)

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We have two calls for proposals with four different presentation formats. In the General Session, we have regular paper presentations and posters. We also have Workshop and Talk Story session proposals, which are due two months earlier than the General Session proposals.

General Session Proposals: Paper and Poster Proposals 

Workshop and Talk Story Proposals 

Timeline

• May 2022: Call for Proposals announced
• August 1, 2022: Proposals for Workshops and Talk Story Sessions deadline
• September 1, 2022: Notification of acceptance to Workshops and Talk Story Sessions
• October 2, 2022: Proposal deadline for general papers and posters
• November 1, 2022: Notification of acceptance for general papers and posters
• November 1, 2022: Early registration opens
• January 31, 2023: Early registration deadline; late registration opens February 1
• March 2 – March 5, 2023: 8th ICLDC

All questions about submissions should be emailed to [log in to unmask].

Executive Committee

• Andrea Berez-Kroeker, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
• Shelece Easterday, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
• Ha‘alilio Williams-Solomon, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
• Jim Yoshioka, National Foreign Language Resource Center