IASCL’s Zotero Repository of
Research Papers on Underrepresented Languages

It is often difficult to access research papers on underrepresented languages because they’re published in journals that are less well known or difficult to access, in theses and dissertations that may not be easily accessible, or in a language that may not easily be found through English search terms. To try to make this research more accessible, IASCL has decided to establish a Zotero repository so that such research can be stored centrally and easily found. We strongly encourage you to add your research papers about the acquisition of underrepresented languages to the IASCL Repository!

Figure 1. Overview of the Zotero library interface and functions in the Zotero app.

The repository is set to be “Public Closed”, which means that although anyone can see that it exists, they need to be a member in order to read and add to this repository. The repository can be found here. Entries in the repository are tagged by members for different categories, including the structures investigated, the age of the participants studied, the language being learned and the language family it belongs to, as well as the language background of the participants and the methodology used to investigate. Figure 1 provides an overview of the Zotero library interface and functions in the Zotero app.

This project is in its early stages. We welcome any and all suggestions for improvement. Please send your suggestions to the IASCL Media Coordinator.

Please find below information about the papers we seek for this repository, the steps to become a member of the repository, add papers, and tag those papers to help other researchers find them quickly.

What papers can be added?

We actively seek papers that study the acquisition of languages that have less than 20 papers recorded in Appendix 1, Table 6 of Kidd and Garcia (2022); in other words, the language should have appeared in fewer than 20 articles in our main child language journals (Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition, Language Learning and Development) between 1974 and 2020. This paper is included in the overview folder in the group library. In addition to this guiding principle, we encourage researchers to submit articles, published or unpublished, and written in any language — especially if the work hasn’t appeared in a major journal. Our goal is to build a living archive that encourages research often left out of the mainstream.

How to view the repository

  1. If you don’t already have a Zotero account, you can register for one here.

  2. Log in to your Zotero account.

  3. Navigate to the repository using this link and once the page opens, click the “Join” button. This will send a request to the repository admin. NOTE: it may take several days for the approval to be made, as the IASCL staff works part time.

How to add papers to the repository

Adding a paper and its information

There are two ways to add papers to a repository. Navigate to the repository page and either:

Add by Identifier

  1. In the upper left corner of the repository page, click on the “Add by Identifier”.

  2. Enter the DOI, URL, or other persistent identifier of the paper. If Zotero is able to find the entry, it will add the information on the right hand panel. If not, you will need to Add a New Item (see below).

  3. Check that the information added by Zotero is accurate and make changes if necessary.

  4. If you have the PDF of the paper, you can drag it into the entry for this paper in the repository, which will automatically associate the PDF and the entry. Alternatively, you can click “Add File” in the Attachments panel on the right.

Add a New Item

  1. In the upper left corner of the repository page, click on “New Item”.

  2. Add the paper information in the panel on the right.

  3. If you have the PDF of the paper, you can drag it into the entry for this paper in the repository, which will automatically associate the PDF and the entry. Alternatively, you can click “Add File” in the Attachments panel on the right.

Tagging papers for their details

Papers in the repository should contain tags that help other repository users quickly find relevant research. Below you will find a description of how to decide which tags to add to a paper, as well as how to add tags.

Decide which tag to add

When adding a paper to the repository, it needs to be tagged to have at least one entry for each of the pre-defined 6 required categories. Coders are encouraged to include as many tags as necessary, but each paper should have at least one tag in each of the following categories:

  • ⚪️Structures investigated: Phonology, Morphosyntax, Vocabulary & Semantics, Pragmatics & Discourse, Language & Culture, Language change.

  • 🔴Age: 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, 3…10+

  • 🟠Language: Cherokee, Inuktitut…†

  • 🟡Language family: Iroquain, Eskimo-Aleut…†

  • 🟢Participant language background: Monolingual, multilingual, heritage speaker, bilingual…

  • 🔵Topics: Code mixing, Language impairment, Polysynthesis acquisition…

  • 🟣Methodology: Corpus study, Elicited repetition, Eye-tracking, Grammaticality judgement…

†: The authoritative language name, as well as the language family of spoken languages, is coded using Glottolog. The ISO 639-3 code can be added using this resource. Sign languages can be arbitrarily put into one category. Similarly, creole and mixed languages can be put into one category.

How to add tags

  1. Once you have an entry/paper selected, on the right hand panel, click Tag and then “Add Tag”

  2. Start typing in the tag you would like to use. If an existing tag appears that is appropriate, select it.

  3. If you create a new tag, assign a color to that tag by coping and pasting the color emoticon and its accompanying superscript* to the beginning of the tag name:

⚪️, 1🔴, 2🟠, 3🟡, 4🟢, 5🔵, 6🟣

For example, if you create a tag for “American Sign Language”, you would assign it as:

2🟠 American Sign Language”

*Note: For the tag “Structures Investigated”, there is no accompanying superscript.