The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) will be holding the biennial conference’s 3rd edition on November 19 and 20. The event aims to bring together researchers leading innovative work on linguistic theory, and endangered language documentation and description.

This year’s conference is themed Empirical methodologies that drive forward theory building, and will draw a particular focus on the languages of Asia. Thus presentations will use field data to assess their contribution to the elaboration of linguistic theory.

Plenary speakers for the main sessions are Professor Balthasar Bickel, of the University of Leipzig, and Professor Anju Saxena, of Uppsala University.

The conference will be following a workshop on language documentation and archiving, on November 18, whose plenary speaker will be Professor Anthony Woodbury, of the University of Texas at Austin. The workshop will focus on the use of archiving for linguistic documentation, what kind of contribution archiving provides to indigenous communities, how archiving can contribute to the revitalization of endangered languages, etc.

More information here.