Research Papers in Language Revitalization
Research Papers should explicitly focus on practical and theoretical topics in language revitalization and sustainability. Research Papers should be between 15 and 30 pages (single space, including references, examples and appendices). For papers with more than 30 pages, authors should present a written justification to the editors.
Living Languages is a journal dedicated to language revitalization and sustainability. All papers should explicitly address issues in this area. We do understand that approaches to language revitalization are multiprong and may require a multitude of customized actions based on different disciplines. When using methodological and theoretical frameworks from other disciplines, authors should establish the connections with the body of research and the methodological issues in language revitalization. As a good rule of thumb, authors should ask themselves how the work described in their manuscript helps support language revitalization and if this support is clearly stated in the text.
Authors
Authors are not required to have academic affiliations. Each author should include a short bio (30 words), where they mention their academic and non-academic affiliations, and/or connections to the community/language. They can also include any experience or professional position they believe can demonstrate their expertise in the field.
Topics of interest
We present here a non-exhaustive list of potential topics accepted by the journal:
- Language program development and evaluation
- Language documentation and description for revitalization
- Educational theories, approaches and initiatives that support language revitalization (but please notice that the journal is not a publishing venue for papers on Indigenous education)
- Ethnographic studies of revitalization initiatives
- Language identity and ideologies and their relation to language revitalization
- First and second language acquisition and language revitalization
- Historical perspectives of language revitalization
- Language planning and policies and their impact on revitalization efforts
- Cultural studies and language revitalization
- Diasporic studies and language revitalization
- Interdisciplinarity as a reflection of holistic and community-based approaches to biocultural conservation
- Contributions of a diversity of disciplines such as medical and cognitive sciences, applied and theoretical linguistics to language revitalization
The journal is also interested in publishing on a diversity of methodological approaches. We present here a non-exhaustive list of potential methodological approaches accepted by the journal:
- Conversational and narrative frameworks
- Decolonizing methodologies (e.g., Smith 1999, 2012)
- Critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches (e.g., Strega & Brown 2015)
- Relational epistemologies (e.g., Wilson 2001)
- Participatory action research
- Community-based research
- Positivist/experimental studies
- Ethnographies
Peer review process for Research Papers
- All research papers will undergo peer-review. This process will be double-blind to the extent possible. However, in order to accommodate for the diversity of papers that the journal seeks to publish, we will implement adaptive approaches to the peer-review process as outlined below.
- In addition, for papers reporting on a community-based revitalization effort, we ask that the authors provide one to three names of members of the relevant community who participated in or know about the described experience and can provide a peer review of the paper from a community perspective.
- For papers in languages being revitalized, we ask authors to arrange for another member of the language community to review the contribution and also suggest someone external who,
if proficient in the language in question, might review the paper. These reviewers and the reviewer(s) for papers reporting on community-based revitalization efforts can be the same.
- For research papers in a language being revitalized, we recommend authors to provide a 3- page summary in a lingua franca, including the description of the problem, the theories and approaches used, and a description of results.
- Authors are asked to indicate the area(s) of expertise and methodological approaches related to their contribution.
Bibliography
Smith, Linda T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.
Smith, Linda T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.
Brown, Leslie A., Strega, Susan (2015). Research as resistance: Revisiting critical, indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches. Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press.
Wilson, Shawn (2001). What is indigenous research methodology? Canadian Journal of Native Education, 25(2), 175.