LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Peter K. Austin

Endangered Languages Academic Programme

Department of Linguistics

SOAS, University of London

The past 15 years has seen the emergence of a new sub-field of linguistics that has been  termed ‘language documentation’ or ‘documentary linguistics’ (Austin 2010, Himmelmann 1998, 2002, 2006, Lehmann 2001, Grenoble 2010, Woodbury 2003, 2011a). Its major goal is the ‘creation, annotation, preservation and dissemination of transparent records of a language’ (Woodbury 2011a) or of linguistic practices, through audio and video recording of speakers and signers, and annotation, translation, preservation and distribution of the resulting materials. It is concerned with analysing instances of language use in their social and cultural context, along with understanding the conscious and unconscious knowledge, ideas and beliefs that speakers have about their languages. It is by its nature multi-disciplinary and draws on theoretical concepts and methods from linguistics, ethnography, folklore studies, psychology, information and library science, archiving and museum studies, digital humanities, media and recording arts, pedagogy, ethics, and other research areas. It has been particularly concerned with the documentation of endangered languages and cultures.

A cognate development that has a more recent history is the emergence of applied documentary linguistics, which deals with the theory, practice and outcomes for supporting language communities, especially through language management, including language revitalisation and maintenance (Czaykowska-Higgins. 2009, Guerin and Lecrampe 2010, Glenn 2009, Thieberger and Musgrave 2006), and the applications of technology for community activism.

This presentation covers the following issues:

·               defining language documentation

·               language documentation versus description

·               kinds and components of documentation projects, with examples

·               documentary methods (Lüpke 2010, Seifart 2008)

·               workflows – the role of data management, archiving and dissemination

·               metadata and meta-documentation (Austin 2013)

·               applied documentation and support – putting theory and practice to work to deal with real world problems and issues

·               social approaches to archiving (Nathan 2010, Woodbury 2011b)

·               mobilising documentation materials for community use (Nathan 2006, Holton 2011) and moving into a world of apps (Birch 2012)