Language documentation 20 years on

Abstract

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other ajpect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperworl< Reduction Project (0704-0188), Washington, DC 20503.

Methods in Language Documentation and Description: A Guide to the Kelabit Documentation Project

“…As to whether the naturalistic text corpus is fully representative and comprehensive, unfortunately the answer is probably not. As is often the case in documentation projects (see Austin, 2016), certain genressuch as narrative and descriptionare over-represented in the corpus, whilst otherssuch as day-to-day conversation 26are under-represented. Moreover, many recordings were made with only myself and the speaker present, which means that communicative events were removed from the context in which they would normally occur.…”

“…Indeed, in his seminal work defining the subfield of language documentation, Himmelmann (1998Himmelmann ( , 2006 clearly distinguished between the goals and methods of documentation and description. However, I would argue, following Austin and Grenoble (2007) and Austin (2016), that descriptive analysis is an important part of making the documentary corpus accessible. It can be vital for understanding the function of constructions that are attested in naturalistic texts, as well as for documenting less frequent and more complex constructions.…”

“…Moreover, it informs our annotation of the primary data, from translation and glossing to more detailed theoretical notes. Consequently, elicitation can be seen as directly contributing to the knowledge of the linguist, which in turn allows them to achieve the stated aims of a documentation that has added-value and becomes useable to a range of potential future users (Austin, 2016).…”

How Software Features and Linguistic Analyses Add Value to Orthographic Markup in Transcription of Multilingual Recordings for Digital Archives

“…In our view, all DLAs are a form of language documentation, an interdisciplinary endeavor that aims to create lasting, multipurpose records of language [2]. Given that a central goal of all language documentations is the archiving of the linguistic practices of specific speech communities, systematic recordings of spoken language collected in appropriate sociocultural contexts are vital, as are transcriptions that apply linguistic knowledge to create practical representations, adding value to such primary data [3]. Best practice recommendations regarding the content of such samples [4, p. 571] advocate for comprehensive digital language resources that are "sufficiently broad in scope, rich in detail, and authentic in portrayal that future generations will be able to experience and study the language, even if no speakers remain".…”

Best Practices for Information Architecture, Organization, and Retrieval in Digital Language Archives within University Institutional Repositories

“…Over the last two decades, language documentation theory has emerged in various key publications [1,[4][5][6][7][8] that outline guiding principles for the field. These works demonstrate the need for digitally archiving multipurpose records of language in the form of primary data (recordings of spoken language) and apparatus (metadata and transcriptions) to responsibly preserve/disseminate such records for future uses yet unknown.…”