Chapter 15 – Thick interfaces: Mobilizing language documentation
365
The first three frameworks are formulated in Grinevald (2003: 58).
3
Field-
work on a language is the classic academic investigation involving a linguist
and his/her “informant”. In fieldwork for a language, communities began to
exert some control over research, and linguists became “useful” to commu-
nities, typically in the sense of advocacy (rather than, say, tailoring their out-
puts to community needs). Then, from the 1980s, communities increasingly
became collaborators in research, and, with more contexts for community
control, and better local training, fieldwork is carried out with and by com-
munity members.
By contrast, the “deliver to” framework is concerned with timely provi-
sion of effective language resources in order to encourage and support lan-
guage strengthening. It emphasizes product delivery and language outcomes
over the nature of the fieldwork process or distinguishing between the roles
played by community members or linguists. Typically, a fieldwork-based
project will involve a mix of all of these framework activities; however,
one that delivers usable resources based on documentations can be said to
provide mobilization.
We turn now to the other type of interface; the computer screen displays
through which people interact with language resources, first considering
where information technology and, more specifically, multimedia, fit into
the documentation agenda, then looking at some specific examples.
1.2. Where does information technology fit in?
Information technology plays a central role in language documentation. For
example, it heads Woodbury’s (2003: 36) lists of elements that “set the
stage for [the] reconceptualization” of documentation:
we should be able to link transcriptions with audio- and videotapes, and
entries and dictionaries or statements in grammars with large databases of
illustrative examples.
(Woodbury 2003: 36)
4
In addition, computer users, including increasing numbers of speakers of
endangered languages, now have skills and experience in using many com-
puter-based genres such as games, interactive encyclopedias, media editing
applications, word processors, web browsers, and search engines (Nathan
2000a: 46; Grinevald 2005). Taking all of these together with the ongoing
convergence of electronic archives, libraries, and publishing, these users
have ever greater expectations of linguistic resources.
366
David Nathan
From the other direction, information technologists are paying more and
more attention to language and communication. Today, a range of technol-
ogy types are applied to languages, each providing increasing levels of lin-
guistic interaction:
I
II
III
resource discovery:
supporting access
mobilization:
creating usable resources
telecommunications:
providing open channels
Development of resource discovery [I] is well under way (e.g. OLAC nd).
Mobilization [II], like resource discovery, relies on the creation of linguistic
materials, but, in common with telecommunications, involves relationships
between producers and receivers. Although telecommunications (tele-
phony, video links, and real time voice recognition, transcription and trans-
lation) offers considerable potential for language documentation, it is rarely
used.
2. Multimedia
In this section, we look at the properties of multimedia and look further at
why it is suited to supporting endangered languages. Normal human par-
ticipation in linguistic events generally involves listening, seeing, and other
modalities. However, languages have long been represented (and docu-
mented) using only text, or, more recently, sound. We have been restricted
to monomedia because we have been limited by the available technologies
– writing, printing, and magnetic tape. Thus, although the name multimedia
implies complexity, it actually expresses the overcoming of previous con-
straints.
5
Today’s multimedia technologies allow more authentic modes of
expression. They can be defined as combinations of audio, video, images,
and text, integrated and coordinated by a computer to allow user control
and interaction.
There are several specific reasons to consider delivering multimedia as
one of the outcomes of language documentation. Firstly, it sets up produc-
tive linkages between the process and the outcomes of fieldwork. Creating
multimedia requires consideration of its effectiveness and its audience, and
thus the language community takes the role of clients whose wider linguistic
needs must be understood and from whom feedback must regularly be
sought. Multimedia products must be planned early in the fieldwork process,
Chapter 15 – Thick interfaces: Mobilizing language documentation
367
so that suitable recordings can be made and other material collected; later,
prototypes must be tested with the target audiences (although multimedia
can be based on pre-existing recordings, recordings created in the context
of a project with community participation will typically produce better re-
sults; Nathan 2004: 157). Therefore, multimedia products cannot be created
by working in isolation, far from the community and separated from field-
work and data collection. A clear, negotiated plan for creating a locally
usable multimedia product is likely to provide the motivation and contexts
for community interest and participation in all aspects of the fieldwork. It
will also be the first step in creating a community “biography” of the prod-
uct, which in turn will increase their enthusiasm for using it when it is de-
livered.
Secondly, using multimedia changes the way that community members
and their language are represented. Multimedia products directly present a
community member’s relationships to the language and linguistic events,
because their audio or video performances are not shifted to written forms
or mediated by analysis. As a result, participants are actors rather than con-
sultants, and they address the product’s users directly, rather than through
the information interpreted by a researcher.
Bird (1999a) noted that linking an analysis to the original recordings on
which it is based can provide a more scientific linguistic account, because
any user can examine the analysis in the light of the actual “data”. For lan-
guage community members, the advantages of providing ready access to
rich and contextualized representations of actually occurring language
events are even greater. Users can recognize individuals and experience
language content in the context of real situations and relationships. In fact,
multimedia can provide many connections – social, emotional, intellectual,
and learning – between the user of the product and the represented actors
and linguistic events.
Developing multimedia involves activities consistent with the desiderata
for language documentation. It directs attention to the nature of linguistic
events and performances in their social and physical contexts. When pre-
paring the content for a multimedia product (Nathan 2004) one needs to
take into account factors such as the variety, coverage, and quality of re-
cordings of events; factors that echo the priorities of documentary linguis-
tics (Himmelmann 1998). Multimedia typically requires a multi-skilled
team and therefore reminds us of the multidisciplinary nature of documen-
tation; it potentially exposes linguists to the expertise of designers, teachers,
and programmers, and results in multimodal products that can be used in
Dostları ilə paylaş: |