ALM5510

Language Maintenance in Practice ( 24 points, SCA Band 1, 0.500 EFTSL)

Leader: Dr Margaret Florey

Offered:
Clayton First semester 2006 (Day)
Clayton First semester 2006 (OCL)

Synopsis: This unit provides students with an opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge and understanding of the issues involved in language endangerment. Students will develop and implement a research project with outcomes of practical benefit in strengthening or supporting language maintenance practice within a community or organisation. Possible topics include developing curriculum for a school or community language program, documenting aspects of a previously undescribed language, preparing a sketch grammar drawing upon existing documentation or archival materials, developing language teaching and literacy materials, preparing topical wordlists in the endangered language.

Objectives: 1. On completion of this unit students should be able to: 2. draw on in-depth and critical knowledge of the literature in this field to write a literature review; 3. formulate a detailed proposal to develop a language maintenance project; 4. plan the stages in carrying out research in an endangered language community or an organisational setting; 5. apply appropriate methodologies to implement research questions; 6. undertake independent research; 7. analyse primary data; 8. write a comprehensive, in-depth research paper based on original research.

Assessment: Literature review: (1500 words) 15% Research project proposal: (1500 words) 15% Research project write-up: (15000 words) 70%

Contact Hours: 2 hour seminar per fortnight

Prerequisites: ALM 4110 - General Linguistics LIN 4030 - Issues in language endangerment LIN 4050 - Developing language maintenance programs LIN 4060 - Working with linguistic archival materials LIN 4040 - Researching and documenting languages