Issues of "Endangered Languages studies"
Résumé
In the plenary session I will focus on epistemological aspects of endangered language (EL) studies. After a brief presentation of its recent scientific history, I will discuss some key notions and concepts of linguistics and sociolinguistics, such as community, speakers, language, in their operability on EL studies. Studying EL means dealing with specific sociolinguistic context that by extension implies developing an adapted approach of fieldwork. If the workshop will develop this aspect more in details, in the plenary I will present the complexity of EL field, agendas of each stakeholder do not always match to each other, and different ideologies come into conflict. Finally, I will develop the hypothesis that EL fields are observatories that allow re-examine sociolinguistic concepts or even develop new ones.
