Linguistics in the Pub – Page 3 – Endangered Languages and Cultures

Useful and interesting websites and apps about endangered languages: July LIP

11 July 2013 by rsinger

Ruth Singer recaps some of the interesting points of this week’s Melbourne Linguistics in the Pub, an informal gathering of linguists and language activists that is held monthly in Melbourne In this month’s LIP and last month’s participants shared in their latest discoveries in the world of apps and online resources. June’s meeting focused on software … Read more

Models of community engagement: LIP discussion

27 May 201315 May 2013 by Lauren Gawne

Lauren Gawne recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

This month’s discussion focused on the ways in which we engage with the speakers of the languages that we study. The general understanding of community engagement was work that you do that doesn’t necessarily directly benefit your own linguistic goals, but which will be of benefit or interest to the speakers you work with. Not all engagement is the same though. We had a range of experiences to draw on – although what is always readily apparent in these conversations is that every field site and group of speakers offers a unique situation. As always, please feel free to leave your own experiences in the comments below to broaden the conversation!

Building and using corpora from language documentation corpora: A LIP discussion

27 May 201326 April 2013 by Lauren Gawne

Lauren Gawne recaps the April edition of Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

Last month we focused on outputs from language documentation projects that could be of use to the language-speaking communities we work with, and a wider audience. This month, inspired by the LD&C special publication on the Potentials of Language Documentation) we turned to looking at how the same projects could also be used for research beyond the immediate scope of the initial documentation project. This discussion took in a wide range of areas – including returning to older data, the kinds of projects that can be undertaken when revisiting existing corpora and the realities of building a corpus during a documentation project.

Things you can do with outputs from language documentation projects: A LIP discussion

27 May 201328 March 2013 by Lauren Gawne

Lauren Gawne recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

Our first Melbourne LIP for the year at our regular venue got off to a rocky start when the function room was usurped by the local Touch Football team. Fortunately, we had such an excellent turn out – especially of local honours and PhD students – that we were able to make do in the general area by breaking up into smaller groups to discuss this month’s topic.

Most of the points discussed below are from either the discussion I participated in, and the general summary discussion we had at the end. This means ideas and discussion points may not be attributed to the correct people, but you’re welcome to add clarifying remarks in the comments below.

Urban fieldwork: LIP discussion

15 November 201214 November 2012 by Lauren Gawne

Lauren Gawne recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field. The topic for the final Linguistics In the Pub in Melbourne for 2012 was ‘urban fieldwork’, lead by Rosey Billington. Rosey is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne working … Read more

Researching child language in the field: October LIP

22 October 2012 by rsinger

Ruth Singer recaps some of the interesting points of the last week’sLinguistics in the Pub, an informal gathering of linguists and language activists that is held monthly in Melbourne A number of linguists in Melbourne have recently begun documenting child language in the field. In the November 2011 LIP we discussed what you need to … Read more

Crowd-sourcing and Language documentation: September LIP

27 September 2012 by rsinger

Ruth Singer recaps some of the interesting points of the last week’s Linguistics in the Pub, an informal gathering of linguists and language activists that is held monthly in Melbourne The most recent LIP included a demonstration of the Ma! Iwaidja phrasebook and dictionary app developed by the Minjilang Endangered Languages Publication project (publishing as Iwaidja … Read more

Technology and language documentation: LIP discussion

27 June 2012 by Lauren Gawne

Lauren Gawne recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

This week at Linguistics in the Pub it was all about technology, and how it impacts on our practices. The announcement for the session briefly outlined some of the ways technology has shaped expectations for language documentation:

The continual developments in technology that we currently enjoy are inextricably connected to the development of our field. Most would agree that technology has changed language documentation for the better. But while nobody is advocating a return to paper and pen, most would concur that technology has changed the way we work in unexpected ways. The focus is usually on the materials we produce such as video, audio and annotation files as well as particular types of computer-aided analysis. In a recent ELAC post, ‘Hammers and nails‘ Peter Austin claims that metadata is not what it was, in the days of good old reel-to-reel tape recorders. The volume of comments suggests that this topic is ripe for discussion. This session of Linguistics in the Pub will give us a chance to reflect on how our practices change with advances in technology.

There are a (very) few linguists who advocate that researchers should go to the field with nothing beyond a spiral-bound notebook and a pen, though no one at the table was quite willing to go that far; all of us, it seems, go to the field with a good quality audio recorder at the very least. Without the additional recordings (be they audio or video) the only output of the research becomes the final papers written by the linguist, which are in no way verifiable. The recording of verifiable data, and the slowly increasing practice of including audio recordings in the final research output are allowing us to further stake our claim as an empirical and verifiable field of scientific inquiry. Many of us shared stories of how listening back to a recording that we had made enriched the written records that we have, or allow us to focus on something that wasn’t the target of our inquiry at the time of the initial recording. The task of trying to do the level of analysis that is now expected for even the lowliest sketch grammar is almost impossible without the aid of recordings, let alone trying to capture the subtleties present in naturalistic narrative or conversation.

Participant Observation: A LIP discussion

12 June 201212 June 2012 by Aidan Wilson

This post recaps the May meeting of Linguistics in the Pub, whose topic was More than just being there? The place of participant observation in linguistic fieldwork. Two weeks ago at Linguistics in the Pub, we discussed an issue that many linguists never really consider, but which is central to many anthropologists’ work: the role … Read more

Best and worst practice in language documentation: LIP discussion

22 March 201221 March 2012 by Lauren Gawne

Ruth Singer recaps some of the interesting points of last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, an informal gathering of linguists and language activists that is held monthly in Melbourne

The announcement for this month’s Linguistics in the Pub outlined the topic as follows:

“There is much discussion of best practice in language documentation but as we all know, no language documentation project is perfect: each is the result of collaboration between researchers and a community with restrictions on time, money and many unforeseen circumstances. There is always a gap between what we achieve and the most wonderful project of our dreams.

Come and tell us about your experiences. What aspects of your language documentation work are you most proud of? What will you do differently next time? And what are some of the great things you have planned that you just couldn’t get off the ground?”

The idea behind this discussion topic is that language documentation projects tend to aim high and this can result in those leading language documentation projects feeling disappointed. Spurred on by hearing about innovative projects, egged on by others in the language documentation field to follow best practice in an increasingly multiplying number of areas we sit at our computer concocting new language documentation projects that will create years of recordings, miles of transcripts and beautiful metadata as well as lovely outputs that suit the needs of the language speaker community. In the process we will develop wondrous collaborations with language speakers supporting them to develop the capacity to carry out language documentation work themselves and also meaningful collaborations with other academics such as musicologists, anthropologists and ethnobiologists.