Workshops

Colang 2026 will consist of two weeks of workshops on a diversity of relevant topics. In addition to the workshops, the first two-week session will include other opportunities for engagement with broader ideas in the field and cultural experiences of the area, through plenaries and cultural activities. Following the examples set by previous institutes, the first two weeks of CoLang 2026 will also include the steps plenary, sharing nights and models talks.

people sitting in audience at lecture

Steps plenary

The Steps plenary, which is held on the first day, serves as an introduction to the institute and provides an overview of the process of documentation and maintenance from project conceptualization to postproduction of linguistic analysis and language learning materials.

woman presenting in front of people

Sharing nights

Sharing Nights are held in the evenings during the workshop weeks. Participants are invited to make five-minute presentations on their own ongoing or nascent projects, enabling them to use the collective knowledge and creativity of CoLang participants to get constructive feedback and share their ideas with those in attendance

woman presenting in front of audience

Models talks

Models talks provide exemplars of documentation and maintenance, exposing participants to current work by scholars (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) and community members engaged in innovative and successful collaborative projects.

Workshop Topics

The purpose of workshops is to start or deepen understanding of holistic, collaborative language documentation processes and tools, including their linguistic, ethical, practical, and technical dimensions. The workshops take place in the first weeks of the institute, where participants will select two workshops in the morning and two in the afternoon, each of which will be 90 minutes in duration. Though some workshops in Week 2 will be a continuation of a workshop offered in Week 1, Week 2 will generally offer a different set of workshops than Week 1.

The topics of the workshops are connected to the following themes:

  • Basics: Basic concepts in linguistics, such as lexicography, orthography, transcription, and grant writing.
  • Technology: Software relevant for language documentation and revitalization (such as ELAN and FLEx), training in audio and video methods, introduction to data management, etc.
  • Community language development: Development of capacities within communities, ethics and practicalities of on-site collaborative research.
  • Language pedagogy: Teaching methods, curriculum development, assessment and teacher training.
  • Interdisciplinary approaches: Integration of language documentation and revitalization with other fields.

Relevant themes for CoLang 2026

In addition to the standard training workshops that are typically offered at CoLan, we will solicit for workshop topics that are connected to themes relevant in particular for CoLang 2026:

Decolonization

Decolonization focuses on understanding the effects of colonization and on working to undo its effects by centering Indigenous epistemologies, methodologies, and priorities (e.g., Smith 2012; Tuck & Yang 2012; Leonard 2020). The concept has been applied theoretically as a means to understand current situations involving Indigenous people (e.g., how the decline of Native American languages can be understood as a direct consequence of Euro-American policies and practices). Furthermore, as an action-oriented framework, it has also been used to facilitate actions that result in broader inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, which promotes both a broader understanding of language and a more inclusive academic field (Charity Hudley et al. 2024).

Language reclamation and tribal sovereignty

Documentary linguistic work in the last couple of decades has begun to turn towards frameworks such as Community-Based Participatory Research
(Czaykowska-Higgins 2009), a framework that goes beyond simply being more ethical towards communities to engaging in work that is directly based in active partnership with communities. In addition, this approach broadens the conventional understanding of language revitalization such that it centers Indigenous priorities. Leonard (2012) refers to this as Language Reclamation, which involves “a larger effort by a community to claim its right to speak a language and to set associated goals in response to community needs and perspectives” (p. 359). Approaching linguistic work informed by principles of Community-Based Participatory Research and Language Reclamation entails recognizing the unique status of tribes as sovereign entities and supporting tribal self-determination of how work with tribal languages is conducted.

Grounding language work in local culture and history

Indigenous ways of life are grounded in place, and Indigenous languages are understood as a vital link to the history and culture of a people. This stands in contrast with the way some academic linguists approach languages as disembodied structural systems independent of the people who speak them (Leonard 2017). Meaningful language work that is based on community priorities actively incorporates the culture and history of a community in all aspects of the work, including documentation, pedagogy, and policy.

Anticipated workshops

We will issue a call for workshop proposals, which will include a description of the intended themes of the institute. The actual workshops offered in the first two weeks will be based on the accepted proposals, though we generally expect to have workshops as outlined in the tables below.

woman holding paintbrush painting mural

Increased inclusion of Indigenous facilitators

CoLang 2026 will prioritize increased Indigenous representation for facilitators, which aligns with expected increased participation from Indigenous communities (which has been the trend for previous institutes of CoLang). Facilitators will include Indigenous linguists, scholars, graduate students, language teachers, and other language workers. Workshops, especially in Basics, Community Language Work, Language Pedagogy, and Interdisciplinary Approaches will be co-taught by a team of Indigenous scholars or with at least one Indigenous linguist/activist, whenever possible.