Hiram Ring
  • Posts
  • Music
    • Projects
    • Downloads
    • Bio/Press
    • Music Photos
    • Music Links
    • Store
  • Linguistics
    • Travel Photos
    • Useful Linguistic Links
  • Posts
  • Music
    • Projects
    • Downloads
    • Bio/Press
    • Music Photos
    • Music Links
    • Store
  • Linguistics
    • Travel Photos
    • Useful Linguistic Links

ICAAL 7 Proceedings volume

9/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Planting rice near Jowai, NE India
At the end of last year the ICAAL 7 proceedings volume was published by University of Hawai'i Press as a special issue of the Journal of the South-East Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS). The 8th ICAAL was just held in Chiang Mai, and so I think it's worth writing a bit about the 7th ICAAL proceedings, even at such a late date. The issue was edited by myself and Felix Rau (University of Cologne), and I wrote more details about it in a Twitter thread when it was first released. It was my first attempt at (co-)editing an issue/volume, and it was a good experience, made more so by an excellent co-editor, timely responses generally from authors and reviewers alike, and the support/advice of Mark Alves, Paul Sidwell, and Mathias Jenny. It was such a good experience, in fact, that Felix and I have agreed to edit the proceedings from ICAAL 8.

I won't go into great detail about the papers, since the issue is open-access, and so anyone interested can follow the link above and download/read the abstracts/papers at their leisure. But I do want to highlight a few general points about the encouraging direction it shows for Austroasiatic studies. There is also an extensive backstory to the history of the International Conference on Austro-Asiatic Linguistics (ICAAL) that provides a bit more context. One take on at least part of that backstory can be found here, and more can be found here.
Picture
Presenters and attendees of the 7th ICAAL in Kiel, Germany
​The seventh International Conference on Austro-Asiatic Linguistics (attendees pictured above) was held in Kiel, Germany in 2017. One point that we note in the introduction to these papers is that this is only the fourth published proceedings volume since the conference's inception in 1973. Over a span of 40+ years, 7 ICAAL meetings have been held, and proceedings have been published for just over half. There are various reasons for this, but we hope that this special issue is part of a trend.

Bolstering this trend is the fact that the majority of the papers in this special issue are by relatively young linguists. In the field of Austroasiatic linguistics there are well-known and well-cited scholars such as Harry Shorto, Gerard Diffloth, Philip Jenner, Eugenie Henderson, Norman Zide, Geoffrey Benjamin, Ilia Peiros, Patricia Donegan and Michel Ferlus, but the majority of their work was done in the 60s-90s. Some of these scholars have passed on, and only a few scholars such as Niclas Burenhult, Nicole Kruspe, Paul Sidwell, Greg Anderson, Mark Alves, Nathan Badenoch and Mathias Jenny have 'carried the torch', as it were, and worked to extend and expand our knowledge of the Austroasiatic languages, especially in the last 10 years. Thanks to their efforts, however, and especially to their mentorship, there is a growing number of young scholars who are working on these languages, providing important insights and datasets for other scholars.

The focus on data and the attempt to make primary data accessible is a particularly heartening feature of this issue. The data is accessible either through online, open-access repositories or through included examples, tables, or appendices. While previous work on Austroasiatic languages included such data, the inclusion of online repositories follows a growing trend in the social sciences where underlying data can be assessed and results can be replicated by other scientists, or an analysis can be contradicted or refined. The benefits of this 'open science' approach are mainly that the focus is taken off of the individual and whether they argue well for a position, and instead the focus is placed on what the best interpretation of the data is, and whether the data supports the individual's argument. This is only possible when the data is accessible.
0 Comments

    About me

    I'm a linguist and singer-songwriter. I write about life, travel, language and technology.

    Archives

    January 2022
    May 2020
    September 2019
    July 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2015
    May 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    3mt
    Abbi
    Acoustic
    Advice
    AI
    Album
    All I Want
    Analysis
    Andaman
    Annotation
    Archive
    Audio
    Austroasiatic
    Backup
    Biate
    Bibliography
    Breathe Deep
    China
    Chords
    Clause Similarity
    Cloud
    Collaboration
    Computers
    Conference
    Culture
    Data
    Data Access
    Datasets
    DataVerse
    Death
    Deixis
    Demonstratives
    Documentation
    Draw
    Duration
    DX
    E920
    Easter
    El Capitan
    E Reader
    E-reader
    Examples
    EXcel
    F0
    Failure
    Feature
    Fieldwork
    Formants
    Forums
    Friends
    Ghana
    Git
    Git Metaphor
    Greet The Dawn
    Hanvon
    HLS20
    Holiday
    Home
    How-to
    ICAAL
    Implicit Motives
    Instruction
    Intensity
    Interlinear
    I've Got A Girl
    Kindle
    Language
    LaTeX
    Linguistics
    LyX
    Mac
    Machine Learning
    Mastering
    Metaphor
    MU
    Myanmar
    Natural Language Processing
    Neural Networks
    New Release
    News
    NLP
    NLTK
    Open Science
    Papers
    Paperwhite
    Pdf
    PhD
    Phonetics
    Phonology
    Pitch
    Plot
    Pnar
    Praat
    Practical
    Process
    Processing
    Production
    Programming
    Psalms
    Psychology
    Publications
    Publicity
    Python
    Radar Radio
    Reasons
    Recording
    Research
    Review
    Scripts
    Sentiment Analysis
    Singapore
    Song
    Soundfarm
    Sports
    Studio
    Subrepo
    Syntactic Reconstruction
    Text Classification
    Thailand
    Thesis
    Things To Know
    This Lamp
    Thoughts
    Tips
    Tone
    Toolbox
    Tools
    Track List
    Transcriber
    Transcriber 1.5.2
    Transcription
    Travel
    Trs2txt
    Update
    USA
    UZH
    Valentine's Day
    Version Control
    Video
    Vowels
    Web App
    Website
    Wedding
    Word - Flesh
    Workflow
    World Cup
    Writing
    YUFL
    Zion's Walls
    Zurich

    RSS Feed

    prev. blog

      Contact me

    Submit
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.