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Sound and Unsound Documentation:

Sound and Unsound Documentation:. Questions about the roles of audio in language documentation. David Nathan. Endangered Languages Archive School of Oriental and African Studies University of London www.hrelp.org. A paradigm shift?. From evidence to performance…. Documentation output.

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Sound and Unsound Documentation:

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  1. Sound and Unsound Documentation: Questions about the roles of audio in language documentation David Nathan Endangered Languages ArchiveSchool of Oriental and African StudiesUniversity of London www.hrelp.org

  2. A paradigm shift? • From evidence to performance…

  3. Documentation output Wittenburg & Mosel (following Himmelmann): “… the corpus should consist of a variety of text types and genres. Multimedia (sound and video) recordings form the basis of the documentation work. These recordings should be associated with an orthographic or phonemic transcription, a translation in one of the major languages of the world, and/or glossings in a local lingua franca and English…”

  4. Documentation output Johnson & Dwyer: “Genre Interaction: conversation, verbal contest, interview, meeting/gathering, riddling, consultation, greeting/leave-taking, humor, insult/praise, letter Explanation: procedure, recipe, description, instruction, commentary, essay, report/news Performance: narrative, oratory, ceremony, poetry, song, drama, prayer, lament, joke Teaching: textbook, primer, workbook, reader, exam, guide, problems Analysis: dictionary, word-list, grammar, sketch, field notes Registerinformal/conversational, formal, honorific, jargon, baby/caretaker talk, joking, foreigner talk Styleordinary speech, code-switching, play language, metrical organization, parallelism, rhyming, nonsense/unintelligible speech”

  5. A paradigm shift? • Sound as evidence in documentary linguistics … • data not independent of a theory which uses it • what is it? Disk, sound recording, file, file + metadata, transcription etc • how to represent and store it • how to present it • what to do with it

  6. Recorded/recording events as performances • Reifications of pattern or ideal • Distinguish between event and record of it – (fundamental for documentary linguistics) • Repeatable, comparable; implies genre, audience • Assists with protocol (attributes and participation) • Allows editing to be methodologically possible • Links us to existing fields’ knowledge and experience, e.g. radio, cinematography, performing arts, music, musicology, ethnography …

  7. Archivism • However, what we got was archivism Archivism: capitulation of language documenters to the agenda and priorities of archives and information technology • Why did this happen? • for historical reasons • rapid changes in technology • we left a vacuum

  8. From evidence to archivism • Positive aspects of archivism - for some, for now, endangered languages field is luckier than others • clear imperative to archive data • benefits of new technologies (media, storage, convergence) • funding and resources: DoBeS, EMELD, HRELP etc • However • may be short-lived • we are thrust into competing with entities like banks • not enough contribution to language strengthening etc • not nurturing documentary linguistics • a 'productivity paradox' as experienced by the financial sector?

  9. What have we missed? • Contact with wisdom and experience of established fields e.g. • radio/broadcasting (eg mics, MD) • cinematography (eg quality and specialisation) • journalism (eg equipment handling) • audio archives (linguists had input to IASA before 80s or so)

  10. What have we missed? • Woodbury: most developments are "what's been happening around the emergence of a documentary linguistics", particularly technology, which has raised expectations more than changed practices

  11. Examples • (Schüller) audio professionals use the trained ear as evaluator of quality, while linguists prefer wave-forms etc cf value of binaural recording • media people know that signals emanate from events but do not represent them • recording to edit

  12. Lost opportunities? • Technical • stereo, binaural • monitoring while recording (headphones) • environment and psychoacoustics • microphones and handling • editing • Content • everyday expressions, eg Yuwaalaraay ngarigaa • capturing environment/eliminating environment • preludes to stories that explain who is talking and why etc. • Wider question is: in a mature documentary linguistics, is there a clear, or even valid, boundary between these two?

  13. Did we get what we needed? • What did we get? • advice about formats, parameters, what to avoid • 'silver bullet' equipment and formats • fundamentalism and format wars • What do we need? If we continue to be 'lone wolf' fieldworkers, how to get good quality signals? Quality is relative to purpose. But given exhortations to make 'best record', what influences quality?

  14. What influences audio quality? • A large number of factors: • physical environment (inside, outside) • control/management of environment • acoustics - room, objects • microphone selection, placement, handling, compatibility • mono/stereo/binaural • sources of noise/interference • recorder and recording medium handling • Clearly these span fields: do they tell us anything about the scope of documentary linguistics?

  15. Disappearing recorders • Zounds! Where’s my recorder? • storage (eg iPod etc) • A-D and storage (eg laptop) • transducer (microphone) • Reasons for using a recorder (not laptop) • workflow • quality assurance • consistency • power • There are principles involved!

  16. How much sound? • Under archivism, repositories are seen to determine amount as well as quality of data • ELDP experience • some applicants propose amounts of audio in terms of technologies, eg flash cards only hold a few hours; or (on other hand) voice recorders can hold hundreds! • to get a grant! • Understandable lurching back and forth between extremes • rapid changes in technology, and advice about it • more information available about documentation agenda and technologies • competition for grants as opportunities in linguistics decrease?

  17. How much sound? • Determined by lists of output types and genres? Wittenburg & Mosel: “… the corpus should consist of a variety of text types and genres. Multimedia (sound and video) recordings form the basis of the documentation work. These recordings should be associated with an orthographic or phonemic transcription, a translation in one of the major languages of the world, and/or glossings in a local lingua franca and English…”

  18. How much sound? Johnson & Dwyer: “Genre Interaction: conversation, verbal contest, interview, meeting/gathering, riddling, consultation, greeting/leave-taking, humor, insult/praise, letter Explanation: procedure, recipe, description, instruction, commentary, essay, report/news Performance: narrative, oratory, ceremony, poetry, song, drama, prayer, lament, joke Teaching: textbook, primer, workbook, reader, exam, guide, problems Analysis: dictionary, word-list, grammar, sketch, field notes Registerinformal/conversational, formal, honorific, jargon, baby/caretaker talk, joking, foreigner talk Styleordinary speech, code-switching, play language, metrical organization, parallelism, rhyming, nonsense/unintelligible speech”

  19. How much sound? • Possible answers : • distinguish recording from outputs/products (incl archive deposit as one output) • ELDP/ELAR: demonstrate 10% commitment • let language community members and academic peers judge, not archives or technologies

  20. Un-sound documentation? • Johnston & Schembri: Documenting AUSLAN • no writing or widely-used transcription system • no standardization associated with the culture and history of writing • no written literature; little known about genres etc • no possibility of processing, eg corpus work or 'text mining‘

  21. Un-sound documentation? • Johnston sees tools like MPI’s ELAN as the equivalent of 'writing' for signed languages • Problems annotating video for SL also raise issues being questioned in mainstream linguisticseg existence and atomicity of grammatical categories

  22. Sound interfaces • Spoken Karaim and ShoeHorn Run

  23. Is audio the prime representation? • Multi-tiered, multi-scoped annotation cf recent ELAP workshop where meaning in documentation seen as: • at different linguistic levels • changing and ongoing over time • messy, irreconcilable, contested • drawing on meanings and texts outside the text in question • Suggests that audio recording is merely one (important!) aspect of the documenter’s toolset

  24. Other questions • Who does the recording? • Can community members only use cassettes? • What changes if we shoot video as well? • Are community members more motivated if they can shoot video? • Would we collect data by phone if there was sufficient bandwidth? • What audio resources are most effective for language strengthening? • Have we conflated fieldwork methodology with documentation’s outputs?

  25. Conclusions • In language documentation, a twin shift to • data orientation and • digitisation has led us into domains where there is a wealth of existing experience, which we can not easily tap into, while competing against those who we can't possibly match • Treat audio as a way to capture various kinds of performances, not as the object of description • We are lacking interfaces and software for working with and presenting audio

  26. Thank you

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