Christopher Cox

Doctoral candidate, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta

I am a doctoral candidate and Trudeau and Killam Scholar in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta, pursuing research under the supervision of Prof. John Newman.

My research focuses on issues in language documentation, description, and revitalization, particularly around the collaborative creation and application of permanent, accessible language resources (corpora). Developing language resources in partnership with speaker communities, often those experiencing language shift and loss, presents an opportunity to engage with challenges facing both linguistics and speaker communities today — exploring models of equitable collaboration in language work, developing new applications of language documentation to revitalization and analysis, and considering the contributions that new methods and technologies can make in supporting sustained and meaningful engagement in language reclamation, maintenance, and study.

For the past fifteen years, I have been fortunate to have been involved in language documentation and revitalization efforts with speakers of Plautdietsch, the traditional language of the Dutch-Russian Mennonites, and for the past five years with speakers of Tsuut'ina, a Dene language of southern Alberta.