Undergraduate - UnitATS2665 - Issues in language endangerment

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2012 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	Not offered in 2012
Coordinator(s)	Dr Simon Musgrave

Notes

Previously coded LIN2030

Synopsis

This unit introduces students to the key issues in language endangerment. It examines historical and contemporary assessments of linguistic diversity and language endangerment within the broader framework of the loss of biological and cultural diversity. It reflects on a wide range of issues, including factors in assessing speaker fluency and the degree of endangerment, symptoms and causes of language shift, and changes in domains of language use and patterns of language transmission. General principles and issues are embedded within case studies from a range of regions and language families. The seminar combines lectures with group discussion of key concepts guided by focus questions.

Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should have:

gained familiarity with the significant aspects of the rapidly growing field of language endangerment research and practice;
have an understanding of, and an ability to apply, key terms, concepts and theoretical models relevant to a wide range of language endangerment settings, and
developed the ability to critically evaluate assessments of language endangerment.

Students should be able to:

demonstrate an understanding of the historical development of language endangerment research;
analyse the key factors in assessing language endangerment and speaker fluency;
evaluate alternative explanations for language variation;
interpret theoretical frameworks developed and utilised by researchers in the field, and
apply key concepts to new sets of data.

They should also be able to:

formulate research questions;
utilise appropriate methodologies to conduct independent research;
present their results in discussion forums in small groups (on campus)/online discussion (off campus), and in written exposition (including planning, arguing on the basis of evidence, and documenting), and
engage in team work and critical academic discussion of information and argument.