Lga 3210: Language Description and Documentation Course description

LGA 3210: Language Description and Documentation
Course description

This course will give an overview of language endangerment and the theory and practice of language documentation. The course will discuss what it means for a language to be endangered, where endangered languages are spoken, why they are endangered, and what can be done about the situation. We will explore the newly emerging sub-discipline of documentary linguistics that is “concerned with the methods, tools, and theoretical underpinnings for compiling a representative and lasting multipurpose record of a natural language or one of its varieties” (Gippert, Himmelmann and Mosel 2006:v, see also Himmelmann 1998, 2006, Woodbury 2003), often contrasted with descriptive linguistics that concerns itself with abstract systems and the production of grammars, dictionaries and text collections. We will explore language documentation research methods, and introduce some of the hardware and software tools that can be used in corpus creation (e.g. TypeCraft) typically through data collection in the field. There will be discussion of good practices in data recording, representation and analysis, along with archiving and mobilisation (publication and distribution of research outcomes in various multimedia formats). We will end with some outstanding issues facing the new sub-discipline, including challenges of interdisciplinarity, comprehensiveness and quality of research, archivism, language revitalisation, and ethical and moral concerns about intellectual property rights and what it means to be ‘a good linguist’.

Course objectives

The aim of this course is to

1. 
   Teach students to use new technologies to document languages as a way to deal with language endangerment.
   
2. 
   Teach students about language documentation as an interdisciplinary field of linguisticinquiry and practice, which deals primarily with endangered languages.
   

Course outline

1. 
   Overview of language endangerment
   
2. 
   Overview of documentary linguistics
   
3. 
   Good practices in language documentation
   
4. 
   Tools and research methods
   
5. 
   Documenting a language
   
6. 
   Technology and language documentation
   
7. 
   Outcomes, issues and challenges
   

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. 
   Use new technologies to document languages as a way to deal with language endangerment.
   
2. 
   Describe the process for language documentation of a nondocumented language.
   
3. 
   Conduct field linguistic inquiries that solve the problem of language endangerment.
   

Method of delivery

• 
  Lectures
  
• 
  Group discussions
  
• 
  Class presentations
  
• 
  Written exercises
  

Mode of Assessment

A written University approved examination will be marked out 70% and coursework assignments will contribute 30% of the final mark making a total of 100%.

Reference materials

1. 
   Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (1998) Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36. pp.161-195. Berlin : de Gruyter
   
2. 
   Jost Gippert, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, Ulrike Mosel. (2006) Essentials of language documentation mouton de Gruyter