#langdoc

In 1998 Nikolas Himmelmann wrote "Documentary and descriptive linguistics”, an article for the journal Linguistics (I’m not going to link because it’s paywalled, but you should be able to find a copy floating around online). Himmelmann 1998 is an often cited work that makes a case for the work of documentation (collecting data) being as important as the work of description (describing data) in understanding how languages work.

To look at the 20 years since this publication, Bradley McDonnell, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker and Gary Holton brought together over 30 linguists to reflect on how the field has changed and grown in that time. This is a Special Publication of Language Documentation & Conservation, available open access.  

From the introduction to the special issue:

[W]e invited 38 experts from around the world to reflect on either particular issues within the realm of language documentation or particular regions where language documentation projects are being carried out. The issues addressed in this volume represent a broad and diverse set of topics from multiple perspectives and for multiple purposes that continue to be relevant to documentary linguists and language communities. Some topics have been hotly debated over the past two decades, while others have emerged more recently.

All of the chapters are short and to the point (they’re around 10 pages each). I has a great time writing with Andrea Berez-Kroeker about how language documentation has changed over the last two decades in regards to data management and sharing. Himmelmann talks about the importance of sharing primary data, but the nature of that data, and how we can share it has changed so much since 1998.

Abstract

Reproducibility in language documentation and description means that the analysis given in descriptive publication is presented in a way that allows the reader to access the data on which the claims are based, to verify the analysis for themself. Linguists, including Himmelmann, have long pointed to the centrality of documentation data to linguistic description. Over the twenty years since Himmelmann’s 1998 paper we have seen a growth in digital archiving, and the rise of the Open Access movement. Although there is good infrastructure in place to make reproducible research possible, few descriptive publications clearly link to underlying data, and very little documentation data is publicly accessible. We discuss some of the institutional roadblocks to reproducibility, including a lack of support for the development of published primary data. We also look at what work on language documentation and description can learn from the recent replication crisis in psychology.

Reference

A blog post by Martin Haspelmath about the future of dictionary formatting and an interesting-looking new project:  

To look up a word in a linear dictionary, you typically need to browse to an alphabetic list of possible initial letters, and then browse to the right word, as in a paper dictionary (this is so in the Maa and Archi dictionaries, for example). Other dictionaries try to approximate the familiar Google search line and present users with a search box (e.g. the Yurok dictionary), but this creates the problem that one doesn’t know what to look for – many searches will lead nowhere. Dictionaria combines searching and browsing in an optimal way: Each page shows up to 100 entries (words), with one entry per line (e.g. in the Daakaka dictionary). Each column has a search field on top of it (as in other CLLD applications, such as APiCS), thus allowing searching and filtering by different criteria: not only by headword (as in many dictionaries), but also by part of speech, meaning description and semantic domain, and potentially more. In addition to searching, you can also sort by any field in ascending or descending order.

Many linguists like leafing through dictionaries in order to get a sense of what’s in them, and for a first rough impression, this may work. But have you ever tried to leaf through a dictionary to find out how much it says about adjectives or prepositions? In the Daakaka dictionary, select PREP in the part-of-speech column, and you’ll see all 15 prepositions of the language right away. Similarly, select “color” in the semantic-domain column, and you’ll see all six color terms in the dictionary. You can of course also select two columns at the same time, e.g. “verb” and “food”, to see all 41 food-related verbs of Daakaka. [...]

Does linearity serve a useful purpose? It seems clear to me that it does not serve a practical purpose, but maybe one should not disregard one important social function of dictionaries, especially of smaller languages: The existence of a dictionary in book form gives a language prestige and may instil pride in speakers. Such social prestige functions are often detached from practical concerns, and they can be fulfilled also by items with completely outdated technology. Thus, for prestige reasons (and perhaps for a few older users who are unfamiliar with modern technology), it may still be useful to put together a linear dictionary on paper.

Jackal and Pheasant picture book in Syuba, Nepali and English

This book is an illustration of a story we recorded in Syuba called “Jackal and Pheasant”, as part of the documentation of Syuba (Tibetic, Nepal). The illustrations were made by Jolene Tan as part of an ongoing project at NTU Singapore lead by Joan Kelly to connect students in the School of Art, Design and Media with people working on language documentation.

This small project demonstrates how digital resources can be useful for making a variety of outputs. The story was originally told in Syuba, and then translated into Nepali and English. We made versions that are only English or Syuba, and then bilingual versions in Syuba/English and Syuba/Nepali. English speakers can purchase the mono- or bi-lingual versions, while Nepali speakers can also access the story, and Syuba speakers can read a copy only in Syuba, or also in another language.

We used slightly different formatting styles for the bilingual (above) and monolingual (below) versions. Thanks to Emily Gref for formatting the final books from Jolene’s images.

Jackal and Pheasant original recording:

SUY1-140126-15

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140126

Book archived at: http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/picturebooks

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba only) ISBN-13 978-1545587263

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2zgw88x

Digital version (free to read): https://issuu.com/ntulibraries/docs/jackal_and_pheasant

Jackal and Pheasant (English only) ISBN-13 978-1546511229

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2grx7Pr

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba/English) ISBN-13 978-1546511281

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2yvHuYO

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba/Nepali only) ISBN-13 978-1546511274

Stories and Songs from Kagate - illustrated picture book

This book is an illustrated collection of stories from the documentation of Syuba (Tibetic, Nepal). The illustrations were made by Ng Xiao Yan as part of an ongoing project at NTU Singapore to connect students in the School of Art, Design and Media with people working on language documentation. The illustrations are beautiful, I’m still in awe of how well she captured features of Syuba life.

From the introduction:

This book contains stories and songs  om Kagate speakers. The original recordings were made in 2014 with a number of Kagate people. Some of these stories are traditional folk tales, and you will see that many of them involve animal characters. Some of the stories are personal experience stories. We also have the texts of some songs written by Kagate people. Kagate people want to share their language and their culture with the world.

The recordings of songs and stories were made as part of a project by Joan Kelly and Lauren Gawne, funded by Nanyang Technological University for “the development of artistic and participatory means of recording, writing and transmitting the stories and knowledge of Kagate, an endangered language of Nepal”. This project also funded the illustrations by Ng Xiao Yan, transcription work and other production costs. Further work on the volume, including Nepali translations by Rinchen A. Lama, was funded by the project “Documenting and describing Kagate, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal” run by Lauren Gawne and funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Project. The original recordings can be found online at The Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS. Thank you to Ningmar Tamang, who worked on the  nal text. Thank you also to Emily Gref for editorial and technical assistance and The Firebird Foundation, Awesome Foundation and Stack Exchange for funding an initial period of work with the Kagate community.

View a digital copy of the book 

Purchase a print-on-demand copy (each copy purchased pays for a copy to be printed for)

Stories and Songs from Kagate. 2017. Publisher: Lauren Gawne, Illustrator: Ng Xiao Yan,  Editor: Ningmar Tamang. ISBN-13: 978-1546846475

The original tellings of the stories, and the illustrated book, are also available through the Syuba archive at Paradisec:

Original recordings:

Tiger and Jackal SUY1-140127-13

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140127

Misunderstood Children SUY1-140126-09

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140126

Kabire’s Song SUY1-140127-04

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140127

Crows SUY1-140128-02

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140128

Jackal SUY1-140128-03

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140128

Travelling Song SUY1-140128-05

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140128

Bear Stories SUY1-140129-02

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140129

Family Song SUY1-140128-04

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140128

Picture book:

Descriptive grammars take a lot of time to write, often based on years of fieldwork by the author. For many languages they are the only major source of information we have about how the language works. Although a grammar takes a lot of effort to produce, it’s not often made clear where the data come from, who the author worked with, or whether the data can be accessed by other people. Barbara Kelly, Andrea Berez-Kroeker, Tyler Heston and I decided to explore just how people are talking about their method of work and their research data in descriptive grammars. We have all done work in language documentation and description, and felt like there was a gap in how linguists talked about their work with each other and what they wrote in published grammars. This work is now published in the latest volume of Language Documentation & Conservation.

A survey of 50 published grammars and 50 dissertations

We looked at 100 grammars published between 2003 and 2012. We assessed how transparent they were in their data collection methods, looking at whether they explicitly mentioned things like how many people they worked with, and the recording equipment used. We also looked at whether researchers link from the grammar to the original example. This is important because it means that it’s possible to revisit the original recording or example.

Some of the findings:

Fewer than a third of grammars mentioned the equipment used to collect data or software used to analyse it

For over 2/3rds of the grammars we have no idea where the data used in the analysis is now

Over half of the grammars do not include any metadata for the examples, meaning it’s unclear where they came from, if they’re elicited or whether they were written or recorded.

We can be optimistic about the future; dissertations performed better than published grammars, suggesting that a newer generation of scholars are aiming for greater transparency in their research

We don’t think linguists are doing bad research, we just think that we need to make the work we are doing clearer.

Abstract

Language documentation and description are closely related practices, often performed as part of the same fieldwork project on an un(der)-studied language. Research trends in recent decades have seen a great volume of publishing in regards to the methods of language documentation, however, it is not clear that linguists' awareness of the importance of robust data-collection methods is translating into transparency about those methods or data citation in resultant publications. We analyze 50 dissertations and 50 grammars from a ten-year span (2003-2012) to assess the current state of the field. Publications are critiqued on the basis of transparency of data collection methods, analysis and storage, as well as citation of primary data. While we found examples of transparent reporting in these areas, much of the surveyed research does not include key information about methodology or data. We acknowledge that descriptive linguists often practice good methodology in data collection, but as a field we need to build a better culture with regard to making this clear in research writing. Thus we conclude with suggested benchmarks for the kind of information we believe is vital for creating a rich and useful research methodology in both long and short format descriptive research writing.

Reference