LIN 4930 Syllabus for Language Documentation University of Florida Gainesville Professor Department Office location Telephone Email James Essegbey Languages Literatures and Cultures 342 Pugh Hall 352 846 2431 essegbey ufl edu Course Description This is an interdisciplinary course designed to expose students to new technologies used in language documentation It is open to students who have either taken LIN 3010 Introduction to Linguistics or ANT 3620 Language and Culture or based on interview with instructor Introduction The languages of the world are disappearing at an alarming rate It has been suggested that about half of the world s languages have disappeared in the past 500 years Nettle and Romaine 2000 and some linguists estimate that between 60 to 90 of the world s languages may be at risk of extinction within the next hundred years see Romaine 2007 This situation leads to loss of diversity and important cultural knowledge Since the 1990s efforts have been made by several bodies including UNESCO to address this problem Linguists and anthropologists have been at the forefront in the effort to at least document the languages before they disappear In some cases efforts are made to revitalize the languages as well Language documentation is facilitated by modern technological advances that enable the digitization and integration of video audio and textual material Class objectives The aim of this course is to teach students to use new technologies to document languages as a way to deal with language endangerment It will appraise students with the present linguistic state of affairs and its consequences for global linguistic ecology Students will learn about language documentation as an interdisciplinary field of linguistic inquiry and practice which deals primarily with endangered languages This includes various aspects of fieldwork such as the expectations of the documentalist and those of potential communities whose languages are documented and the ethics and practicalities involved An important aspect of this course is the integration of the study of language structure language use and the culture of language This means that in addition to issues involving the documentation of lexical knowledge and grammatical structure students will learn about cultural and ethnographic understanding of language State of the art tools for recording processing and archiving digital data will also be learned These include using Toolbox to create lexical and textual databases Isle Metadata Initiative IMDI for creating metadata for digital data that is prepared for archiving and ELAN for integrating textual audio and visual data in a time aligned format Finally students will learn how to write grant proposals to document endangered languages Requirements The evaluation requirements for this course are two cumulative tests which will be taken during the first half of the course a documentation project and a project proposal both of which will be the focus of the second half The breakdown is as follows 1 Tests 2 40 1 2 Documentation project 3 Project proposal 40 20 Topic 1 Language endangerment Discusses the different levels of language endangerment and the consequences on linguistic and cultural diversity What is Language death By David Crystal pp1 27 Warramurrungunji s Children The library of Babel By Nicholas Evans http southasia oneworld net ictsfordevelopment online atlas for endangered languages online atlas for endangered languages Topic 2 Language documentation as a field of anthropological linguistic inquiry and practice Discusses documentary linguistics Current trends in language documentation By Peter Austin and Lenore Grenoble Reproduction and preservation of linguistic knowledge linguistics response to language endangerment by Nikolaus Himmelmann Annual Review of Anthropology vol 37 Topic 3 Ethics Discusses the ethical issues involved in working with human subjects most often with economically disadvantaged groups Ethics and practicalities of cooperative fieldwork and analysis By Arienne M Dwyer Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 2 IRB http www research ufl edu research pdf irb 1 pdf Test 1 Topic 4 Tools for recording Discusses the hardware needed for a documentation project an introduction to fieldwork and instrumental phonetics by Peter Ladefoged Topic 5 Ethnography Discusses the position of ethnographical information in language documentation and how to incorporate a cultural and ethnographic understanding of language into research Ethnography in language documentation by Bruna Franchetto Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 8 The ethnography of language and language documentation by Jane H Hill Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 5 Topic 6 Documenting lexical knowledge Documenting lexical knowledge by John B Haviland Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 6 Comrie B and N Smith Questionnaire Lingua Descriptive Series Lingua 42 1 72 P9 L55 Bouquiaux and Thomas Test 2 Topic 7 Using elicitation tools 2 Discusses different kinds of tools for and techniques of elicitation Director matcher tasks Triads the design and use of diagrams drawings and wordless pictures as well as video stimuli Frog story Field Manual for the Language and Cognition Group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen Topic 8 Transcription Discusses different forms of transcription Linguistic annotation by Eva Schultze Berndt Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 9 Topic 9 Establishing a lexical and textual database Toolbox Topic 10 Creating metadata ISLE Metadata Initiative IMDI http www mpi nl publications escidoc60630 searchterm imdi Topic 11 Integrating video and audio ELAN http www mpi nl publications escidoc 60436 searchterm ELAN Topic 12 Sketch grammar Takes a look at the typology and role of sketch grammar in language documentation Sketch grammar by Ulrike Mosel Essentials of Language Documentation Chapter 12 Topic 13 Writing grant proposals to document and endangered language Looks at the bodies that fund language documentation programs noting their criteria and tailors proposal to suit the requirements NSF Documenting Endangered Languages http www nsf gov pubs 2006 nsf06577 nsf06577 htm Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Program http www hrelp org We discuss some successful proposals on the NSF DEL website Required textbook Gippert Jost Himmelmann Nikolaus P and Mosel Ulrike 2006 Essentials of language documentation Berlin New York Mouton de Gruyter