Conference: Advancing Collaborative Language Research

This award supports the Institute on Collaborative Language Research (CoLang), which has taken place biennially since 2008, hosted at various locations in the United States. The program brings together experts in language documentation, linguistic analysis, computational approaches to the study of language, and practical application of academic findings. These experts provide training for undergraduate students, graduate students, and independent scholars who are interested in acquiring technical and linguistic skills for studying language and communicating their findings to the broader public. The institute’s focus is on language in general, with the potential to expand our knowledge about how language functions. We attract facilitators with a broad range of experience and capacities as well as students who are motivated to further develop their interests and career goals in language and related fields such as language databases and artificial intelligence. The institute consists of two sessions, each one lasting for two weeks. During the first session of CoLang, students choose eight workshops to attend. Depending on their interests and career goals, students can choose to learn about cutting-edge technology, computational methods in language documentation, basic concepts in linguistics, how to assess successful language programs, and other related topics. Given that artificial intelligence and translational research are increasingly represented as research areas among linguists, practical workshops on these topics are also offered. During the second session of CoLang, students apply the skills and knowledge learned in the workshops by participating in a more intensive, hands-on practicum that focuses on specific languages. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.