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Crowdsourcing and Gaelic corpus development

Crowdsourcing and Gaelic corpus development. Mark.McConville@glasgow.ac.uk. Gaelic in Siabost. A comprehensive survey of Gaelic ability, use and attitudes in 2011 - attitudes to Gaelic are extremely positive but most parents and grandparents speak to their children in English

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Crowdsourcing and Gaelic corpus development

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  1. Crowdsourcing and Gaelic corpus development Mark.McConville@glasgow.ac.uk

  2. Gaelic in Siabost • A comprehensive survey of Gaelic ability, use and attitudes in 2011 - • attitudes to Gaelic are extremely positive • but most parents and grandparents speak to their children in English • most children enter English-medium primary education.

  3. Tragedy of the Commons • an unregulated depletable shared resource will be destroyed through overuse, by individuals acting independently and rationally in their own short-term self-interest • even though everyone knows that the destruction of the shared resource would be harmful to everyone’s long-term interests • Solution - enclosure, privatisation.

  4. The Gaelic commons • Language is an economic choice - • English - the language of national and international labour markets • Gaelic - the language of local self-identity. • Gaelic development requires an economic solution - • parents need to be persuaded of the tangible, short-term economic benefits of raising their children as Gaelic-speakers.

  5. Gaelic development • Acquisition - • more Gaelic-speakers • Status/usage - • more Gaelic-speaking • Corpus - • standardisation and elaboration • orthography, lexicon, grammar, . . .

  6. Gaelic corpus: 1900 • The Gaelic Bible - • New Testament (1767) • Old Testament (1801) • Literature - prose and poetry • Prescriptive grammars - • Forbes, 1848 • Cameron Gillies,1896

  7. Gaelic corpus: 1970 • Perceived decline in standards - • increase in inconsistency? • more demand for consistency? • Tragedy of the Commons - • the Gaelic corpus as an unowned, rapidly depleting resource • privatisation - GOC

  8. Gaelic Language Academy? • National Plan for Gaelic 2007-2012 - • commitment to a coordinated approach to Gaelic corpus planning, including a Gaelic Language Academy • But very little progress has been made - • no Gaelic Language Academy is in sight. • Why?

  9. Partnership approach? • The National Plan commits BnaG to a partnership approach to Gaelic development. • Plethora of Gaelic development organisations - • BnaG, CnaG, An Comunn Gàìdhealach • Gaelic Books Council, Gaelic Arts Agency, Gaelic Learners Association, MG Alba, . . . • Gaelic language plans • SQA, Education Scotland, Stòrlann, BBC, BCSS, . . .

  10. The Tragedy of the Anticommons • a resource cannot be exploited effectively because there are too many owners, • all of whom need to agree on how best to proceed. • Solution - “bundling”, either by government, or by market forces. • Obstacles - ideological factors, lack of trust, rent-seeking

  11. Crowdsourcing • commons-based peer production (cf. firm production and market production) • Web 2.0, user-generated content, wikis • diversity trumps ability • Can we crowdsource corpus planning for Gaelic? • A “wikademy”?

  12. Reasons for optimism? • OED, English orthography • Fòram na Gàidhlig, Gàidhlig-B • Broadband • Web 2.0 • Strong grassroots interest in Gaelic corpus planning

  13. Community of practice • Gaelic language professionals • CPD • Academic linguists • open science • social impact • Amateur enthusiasts, language activists

  14. http://comhla.wikispaces.com

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