13th Annual International Graduate Student Workshop in Armenian Studies
Language Revitalization and Resurgence: The Case of Modern Armenian
March 8-9, 2024
Weiser Hall 1010 / Zoom: 917 6925 4957

Over the years, the Center for Armenian Studies has fostered dialogue with graduate students around the globe through our annual graduate student workshops. Together with our faculty, graduate students, and visiting and post-doctoral fellows we have pushed scholarship in Armenian Studies in new directions through our collective efforts.

The Thirteenth Annual International Graduate Student Workshop will focus on various issues related to the modern Armenian language. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of Armenian independence, de-Russification processes have allowed Eastern Armenian to gain an increasing presence in a variety of public institutions in the Republic of Armenia. At the same time, the future of the many regional dialects of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) remains uncertain, in light of both the globalizing modern media environment and the region’s political precarity. In the diaspora, Western Armenian has been in crisis mode, even being declared an endangered language by UNESCO. Yet this crisis has also coincided with, or even itself engendered, somewhat of a resurgence, as diaspora communities continue to search for innovative ways to make Western Armenian an everyday part of individuals’ lives. In both the Republic of Armenia and the diaspora, different varieties of Armenian are constantly coming into contact with one another as well as with foreign languages such as English, Russian, and French. What effects have these circumstances had on Armenian and its speakers, and what will be the future trajectory of the language? How has the linguistic landscape of the Republic of Armenian been affected by recent and ongoing sociopolitical upheavals? What are some of the novel methodologies being used to promote the maintenance and flourishing of Western Armenian, and to what extent have these been successful? How are teachers of Armenian - both Eastern and Western - responding to this new transcultural moment that the language finds itself in? These are only some of the questions we hope to inform our discussion.


Friday, March 8, 2024

9:45 AM - 10:00 AM | Opening Remarks
Arakel Minassian (University of Michigan) Emma Portugal (University of Michigan) Gottfried Hagen (University of Michigan)

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Panel I: Roots of Modern Armenian Literary Languages
Moderator: Jennifer Manoukian (University of California, Irvine)

Emma Avagyan (University of Michigan)
Printed Perspectives: The Role of Periodicals in Armenian Language Evolution

Aram Ghoogasian (Princeton University)
New Tongues: The Armenian Language Question, 1840s–1860s

Roza Armen Melkumyan (National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia)
Literary-cultural significance of Van dialect in Gurgen Mahari's "Burning Orchards"

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | Lunch for Workshop Participants

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM | Panel II: Eastern Armenian Dialects Today
Moderator: Michael Pifer (University of Michigan)

Hripsime Hrayr Khachatryan (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest)
The Roots of Hadrut: Preserving the Hadrut Regional Dialect as a Critical Component of Armenian Identity

Emma Portugal (University of Michigan)
Examining the Maintenance of Dialect Features in Colloquial Urban ArmenianSpeech via Variationist Analysis of Vowels in Gavar, Armenia

2:30 PM - 2:45 PM | Break

2:45 PM - 4:15 PM | Panel III: Contemporary Armenian Language Teaching and Research
Moderator: Talar Chahinian (University of California, Irvine)

Alexia Hatun (University of California, Los Angeles)
The “Creative Literacy” Approach to Armenian Language Instruction: A Theoretical Analysis)

Alexia Hatun (University of California, Los Angeles) & Annika Topelian (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa)
A Meta-Analysis of Contemporary Research in Armenian Linguistics: Presenting a New Research Initiative

4:15 PM - 4:30 PM | Break

4:30 PM - 6:00 PM | Keynote Lecture I
Shushan Karapetian (University of Southern California)
From 'Linguistic Compartmentalization' to 'Language and Masculinity': The Evolution of an Idea

Saturday, March 9. 2024

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Panel IV: Western Armenian: Past, Present, Future
Moderator: Ben Fortson (University of Michigan)

Annika Topelian (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa)
Word Order Properties of Declaratives and Wh-Questions in Adult (Heritage) Western Armenian

Arthur Ipek (City University of New York)
The Task of the Lexicographer: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Comparative Lexicography and the Case of Western Armenian

George Balabanian (University of Pennsylvania)
The Development and Spread of Western Armenian Dialects

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM | Lunch

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM | Panel V: Armenian(s) in the Diaspora
Moderator: Shushan Karapetian (University of Southern California)

Julianne Kapner (University of California, Berkeley)
Introducing the Armenian Language in the Bay Area Project

Inessa Arustamyan (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest)
One Language, Many Voices: Interactions between Eastern and Western Armenian in Budapest

Setrag Hovsepian (Arizona State University)
An Armenian School in Damascus - A Study of Visual Anthropology and Language Maintenance

3:30 PM - 4:00 PM | Break

4:00 PM - 5: 30 PM | Keynote Lecture II
Talar Chahinian (University of California, Irvine)
Keeping Up With the Armenians: Contact Zones and Language Mobility in the Armenian World Today

Register here: https://umich.zoom.us/j/91769254957

Cosponsors: Department of Comparative Literature and Department of Linguistics, Office of Research, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact armenianstudies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.