Language Resources and the Community
Victoria Rau
Te Taka Keegan
Knut Olawsky
http://infield.faculty.linguistics.ucsb.edu/courses/lg_resources.html
JUNE 30 - JULY 3, 8:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
IHC Conference Room
Instructors
Dr. Te Taka Keegan, Senior Lecturer
University of Waikato, New Zealand
Dr. D. Victoria Rau, Professor
Providence University, Taiwan
Wheaton College, USA
Dr. Knut J. Olawsky, former ELDP Fellow
La Trobe University, Australia
Course Overview
This workshop discusses the use of technology to assist in the language needs of communities. It will involve identifying communities, identifying the language needs of communities, identifying what technology/resources are suitable to address these needs and then suggest methods to create and implement these technologies and resources. The workshop will be conducted in four sessions.
Session 1: Yami Language Documentation and e-Learning
Dr. Rau will conduct a session with background information on the Yami language and its vitality, followed by the purpose of developing e-Learning materials for Yami and its results, and culminate with a proposed model which takes into consideration the special needs for e-learning development for endangered languages.
Session 2: Computing Resources for the Maori Language
Dr. Keegan will present a session with background information on the Maori language, followed by computing needs that were identified and then an explanation of how resources were created to address these needs. These resources include a Maori keyboard driver, computer terminology in Maori and interfaces that display in the Maori language, including Microsoft Windows and Office, Moodle, and a newspaper website.
Session 3: Addressing technology in Ghana, Peru and North Western Australia
In the third session Dr. Olawsky explains his work within three quite distinct language environments:
Unification of the Dagbani orthography (Northern Ghana)
The development of literacy material, accompanied by practical community support in the Peruvian rainforest (Urarina)
The use of language resources at an Aboriginal Language Centre (Australia), including activity-based strategies.
Session 4: Addressing Participant Community and Language Needs
In the final session, we collectively ask some of the workshop participants to identify their community and their language needs and as a team suggest methods to best address their needs.