The Political Studies Association

Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference

Description

Abstract
As the human machine era dawns, it becomes increasingly clear that the vitality of minoritised languages will begin to face new challenges, on top of the older, largely still unresolved problems of the digital era. Existing policy, such as the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, discusses provisions for television and radio media, but it is barely equipped to support these languages in the digital era, to say nothing of the technological advancements we are currently experiencing. Minority languages are already in a less favourable position, both in terms of positioning against linguae francae, and as publicly supported national languages (Moring, 2013), and their presence, or lack thereof, on the internet is limited, with a few noted exceptions (Belmar and Glass, 2019, and subsequent work).
Therefore, developing instruments that encourage institutions and political entities to take proactive measures to ensure that minoritised languages receive support during this transition between the digital and human machine era.
This talk presents the official recommendations for protecting minoritised languages that have emerged from the discussions within the Cost Action Language in the Human Machine Era (LITHME) Working Groups 3 and 4 which focus on Language Rights and Diversity, Vitality and Endangerment respectively.
We consider the successes and failures minoritised languages experienced within the digital era, and how they may be translated into the human machine era. The planning activities in the next few years must prioritise finding a stable space for these languages, with the ability to be flexible within contexts to support languages of all levels of vitality. Our primary concern stems from the current lack of support for the localisation of emerging technologies like Al and virtual/augmented reality, which leads us to question whether these may support or further peripheralize minoritised languages.
Period25 Mar 2024 → 27 Mar 2024
Event typeConference
LocationGlasgow, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Minority languages
  • language rights
  • language policy & planning
  • Gaelic
  • human-machine era
  • Artifical Intelligence
  • large language models
  • technological innovations

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