http://hdl.handle.net/10125/310 Sun, 19 May 2013 02:57:35 GMT 2013-05-19T02:57:35Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26197 This paper aims to share the experiences of heritage Mi’gmaq language learners who engaged in a summer Mi'gmaq-as-a-second-language class. Also participating in the class were linguists collaborating with the teachers to document and expand the multi-modal teaching method to a digital platform. In this method, teachers Mary Ann Metallic and Janice Vicaire fostered an atmosphere of equality between themselves and the students. The students were encouraged to learn horizontally from each other, as well as from the speakers around them in their day-to- day life. The method combines pictures, speaking, and minimal text in an optimally-challenging environment. The pictures encourage students to leave English outside the classroom and reduce the amount of word-to-word translation, thereby diminishing English's status as the default communicative language. There was no strict syllabus and the teachings catered to the students, focusing on material they wanted to learn. The absence of grading relieves the habitual school-related pressure to perform; students are self-motivated. This method could be extended to other Algonquian languages because of its effectiveness in simplifying polysyntheticity (see e.g. Baker 1996), and because it reflects the primarily oral status of the language in the community. The linguists made the following contributions to the program: (i) documentation of the program and adaptation into a digital platform; (ii) connecting intuitive speaker knowledge to meta- linguistic information about formal grammatical patterns; and (iii) documentation of the language for linguistic research and community interests. Linguistic research informed the data structure of the complementary digital program, developed to both complement the in-class instruction, as well as to increase accessibility for students living outside of the community. In our presentation, we introduce the method, its strengths and weaknesses as experienced by students, and provide suggestions for the implementation of such a program in your own community. Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26197 2013-02-28T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4575 Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4575 2013-04-30T00:00:00Z Leonard, Wesley http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4574 Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4574 2013-04-15T00:00:00Z Nagy, Naomi http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4547 This study is an assessment of the vitality of the Manila Bay Chabacano varieties spoken in Cavite City and Ternate, Philippines. These Spanish-lexified creoles have often been described as endangered, but until now there has been no systematic description of how stable the varieties are. The evaluation of the vitality of Manila Bay Chabacano is made based on participant observation and interviews conducted in both communities over the past nine years, using the UNESCO (2003) framework. Comparison between the two varieties shows that the proportional size of the speech community, degree of urbanization, and proximity to Manila account for differences in the vitality of the creoles. In rural Ternate, Chabacano is more stable in terms of intergenerational transmission and the proportion of speakers to the overall community. In the more urban Cavite City, most speakers are of the grandparental generation, but the community is more organized in its language preservation efforts. This study sheds light on two creole varieties in need of further documentation and sociolinguistic description, as well as the status of minority languages in the Philippines. It also offers a critical assessment of a practically-oriented methodological framework and demonstrates its application in the field. Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4547 2013-04-14T00:00:00Z Lesho, Marivic; Sippola, Eeva http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4569 The Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program (MALLP or MAP; cf. Hinton 2001) has found worldwide attention in recent years and has been attested as a valuable instru- ment in language revitalisation far beyond the borders of North America. In 2009, a pilot project based on this model started for the Miriwoong language in North-western Australia, and has since developed into a successful and expanding strategy which could ultimately lead to a wider application on a nationwide scale. This article describes the various adaptive measures used to reflect the specific needs of the local language community and suggests that similar techniques will be useful for application in other communities. An adaptation of the MAP model in Australia may consider factors such as gender, kinship and other aspects of traditional cultural protocol, as well as some other deviations from the original model. An addition to the program which has proven useful for Miriwoong is the introduction of assessment strategies. These do not only assist in reflecting strengths and weaknesses in participants but can be essential as a tool for reporting requirements. Based on the positive outcomes of the MAP approach for the Miriwoong community, including the adjustments made, the model is recommended for application on a larger scale for other parts of Australia and perhaps beyond. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4569 2013-04-12T00:00:00Z Olawsky, Knut http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4571 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4571 2013-04-12T00:00:00Z Meißner, Cordula; Slavcheva, Adriana http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4572 Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4572 2013-04-12T00:00:00Z Lynch, John http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4568 This paper discusses strategic issues in language 'management' (Spolsky 2009; Jennudd and Neustupný 1987) and its complexity in relation to the maintenance of minority languages in contemporary Indonesia. Within Indonesia it is argued that language can be managed and that it should be managed as part of a national language policy framework (among other means). This is especially pertinent in the case of threatened minority languages. The discussion focuses on how categorizcategorizing an issue as either a ‘threat’ or an ‘opportunity’ has affected the priorities and the motivations in strategic decisions and implementations of language policies in Indonesia. These labels have symbolic and instrumental values, and both can be potentially exploited to achieve positive outcomes for language survival. However, the complexity and uncertainty of the problems in dealing with minority languages and their speech communities call for a sophisticated interdisciplinary model of language management. The problems will be illustrated using cases from (eastern) Indonesia, showing how Categorization (Cognitive) Theory and Organisational Theory (Rosch 1978; Rosch and Mervis 1975; Dutton & Jackson 1981) are useful for conceptualizing strategic issues by decision makers at different levels – individuals, families, traditional organizations (adat), and government institutions. Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4568 2013-03-27T00:00:00Z Arka, I Wayan http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26066 The study of language began with the study of ancient written text. This practice has shaped and is still shaping our practices in language documentation. The way we conceptualise language and language use has implications for our documentary practices. We still focus on what we think can be written down and often disregard what we think cannot be written down. But, typically, when we speak, we cannot only hear each other but also see each other. Language is grounded in face-to-face interaction and speaking is a joint activity (Clark 1996). Language acquisition is a process that takes place in face-to-face contexts and our cognitive system automatically integrates both what we hear and what we see (McGurk & McDonald 1976). When we speak, we use our hands to gesture and the information provided in this visual, gestural modality is also integrated automatically in our mind. The gestures we use contribute crucially to our understanding of what speakers are communicating (Kendon 2004). Communities have developed alternate sign languages used in e.g. mourning practices (Kendon). Deaf people develop fully fledged sign languages in the manual modality (Meir et al. 2012). However, despite this basic multimodal nature of language use we often still do not document language to its full extent due to restricting our recordings to audio or restricting video recording to a few genres like story telling. In this talk I will exemplify the multimodal nature of language use, focusing on manual gesture in its various forms and functions from indexing to semantic specification, and discourse structure marking. I will discuss its implications for language documentation practices. The role of video recording and the way language use needs to be video recorded to provide useable material for linguistic and ethnographic documentation and analysis will be highlighted. A methodology for training the much needed video recording will be suggested which embeds the technical training of video technology and recording within a theoretically grounded understanding of language use. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26066 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26060 Kamchatka peninsula in the Far Eastern part of Russia is home to Itelmens – a small indigenous group. With a total population of 3000 people only 10 elders can converse in the Itelmen language, which belongs to the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family. This paper will present an international project initiated by linguists, anthropologists and community members in order to document and preserve the Itelmen language. A central component of the project was a gathering of the speakers of the Itelmen language “Keepers of the native hearth 2012”, that was held in the summer of 2012 in Kamchatka. 30 Itelmen language enthusiasts, speakers and language learners gathered to create an Itelmen language environment, practice conversations, share their knowledge, and work on a unified audio-visual dictionary of the language. During the gathering memories about Itelmen life, life histories, knowledge about the natural environment and its use, and songs were recorded in the Itelmen language. The participants in the gathering discussed grammatical issues, orthography, dialects as well as questions of spatial terminology and deixis. The native speakers shared folk tales, watched videos, and recreated the ancient Itelmen ceremony of the first catch of salmon. “Keepers of the native hearth” were held in the early 1990s, but the purpose of those meetings was ethnographic recollections of traditional Itelmen life. This meeting gathered together the speakers of different Itelmen dialects who live far from each other and who do not have opportunities to meet and talk to each other. This specially created language environment appeared to be an effective effort for language revitalization. During just eight days of the gathering elders, who were reluctant and shy at the beginning started to converse in the Itelmen fluidly and more openly and the language learners had a chance to listen to life conversations and practice. This gathering came as a united effort of US anthropologists, US, Japanese and Russian linguists who have been working with the Itelmens for over 20 years. Community representatives – Itelmen language teachers and specialists played a major role in this event. All contributed to guiding the program and the content of the gathering. The collected materials will be used in the compilation of an audio-visual digital dictionary of the Itelmen language that will be available in the Itelmen, Russian, English and Japanese languages. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26060 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26196 The landscape is an important domain of human experience and activity. Ethnophysioraphy seeks to document the folk taxonomy and terminology for landscape features and components, as well as other cultural connections to land and landscape, including topophilia and sense of place. By landscape, we mean the larger components of the human environment, composed of very large features and places--features such as mountains, rivers, valleys, and forests. Voegelin and Voegelin (1957) recognized topography as a fundamental domain for language documentation. Ethnophysiography also includes landscape-scale water and vegetation features. Documenting linguistic aspects of the landscape domain is especially complicated because the landscape has few bona fide objects; rather, features are extracted from a continuous landscape in ways that themselves may vary across cultures and language. The use of ontological principles to clarify feature extraction and classification will be discussed. Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26196 2013-03-02T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26195 The Folk Taxonomy workshop will focus on practical collection of biological/environmental terms, and determination of effective classification systems. Several field methods will be practiced. Participants are not expected to have any background knowledge in biological or physical sciences in order to develop a reasonable level of confidence and success. Discussions will describe how to develop collaborations with topical experts and how to work effectively with such experts for mutual benefit. Additional topics that will be discussed as time permits are: Intellectual property rights, general/”universal” roles of classification, roles of evidence to support dictionaries, databases for folk taxonomy, likely ethical dilemmas, classifications for specialized categories. Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26195 2013-03-02T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26194 How can basic ethnobotanical skills aid linguists in the process of language documentation? Why is this important? In this course we will discuss methods that ethnobotanists use to document plant and animal names and the traditional knowledge associated with them (uses, phenological and ecological information, stories, songs, chants etc). Topics include collection of plants in the field, preparation of voucher specimens, metadata, herbaria, recording of traditional ecological knowledge, as well as a discussion of ethical issues that can arise. We will conclude with a discussion of the importance of collaborations between linguists and ethnobotanists, and the opportunities and challenges this can present. Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26194 2013-03-02T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26193 Oral history involves more than just turning on a tape recorder and asking an interviewee questions. Careful planning, research, listening, and establishing rapport are basic elements to a successful interview. In this class we will examine the method and value of preparing for and conducting life history interviews with people willing to ‘talk story’ about their experiences, as well as how to preserve, analyze, and disseminate these stories. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26193 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26192 Archived at the University of Nevada-Reno Special Collections department are the collected field materials of the late Sven Liljeblad, a Swedish folklorist who first arrived in the area of Fort Hall, Idaho in the 1940s. In work that spanned four decades, he recorded and made meticulous notes of a range of Northern Paiute and Shoshoni dialects, as well as Nez Perce. His slip files served as the primary source for the newly-published Northern Paiute-Bannock Dictionary (Liljeblad, Fowler, and Powell 2012). There remain many hours of audio recordings on various media—wire, gramophone, vinyl disc, and reel-to-reel—as well as notes, miscellany, and transcriptions in various states of completion. Most of the collection lacks basic metadata, leaving annotations and recordings in disparate areas of the archive without the benefit of cross-referencing. This paper reports on progress toward linking the audio recordings of just one body of materials—those of Northern Paiute storyteller, Pete Snapp (92 years old at the time of the ~1963 recordings)—to the available transcriptions and translations using EUDICO Linguistic Annotator (ELAN). In so doing, conceptually linked elements from different places in the archive are time-aligned in an XML format that can be archived alongside the digitized version of the audio files. One goal has been to preserve the integrity Liljeblad's work while making it accessible for in-depth study of the language by both linguists and community activists. Part of this process has involved developing tiers (annotations) for the original transcriptions, translations, and footnotes associated with the Pete Snapp Tales, while adding tiers for native listener responses, intonation units, and other previously unannotated elements of the recordings. The content of the Tales includes both traditional and historical narratives of great value to the community. An overarching goal of the project is to facilitate access to that content for members of the community. Only 13 of the more than 30 tales recorded from Pete Snapp have been found to carry any annotation whatsoever. This material has been incorporated into our ELAN database and will become a permanent part of the Liljeblad collection. The next obvious step in the digital re-documentation process will be to provide more complete annotations for all the Tales, with the help of native speakers and local technical assistants, and to migrate the materials into a searchable database from which lexical and grammatical information can be found and used. Liljeblad, Sven S., Catherine S. Fowler, and Glenda Powell. 2012. Northern Paiute-Bannock Dictionary. University of Utah Press. Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26192 2013-03-02T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26191 Arbil is a tool developed at The Language Archive at MPI-PL (Author, 2012) for creating metadata that describes research data, such as audio or video files, allowing research data files to be easily searched once they are archived. Arbil was originally developed for the DOBES community to replace the IMDI Editor. The core needs expressed by this group was viewing and editing the metadata when in the field and being able to edit more than one metadata file at once. Indeed, Arbil is fully functional offline, provides tabular editing, and for robustness stores only text metadata files. For moving metadata and associated resources into an LAT archive, the structure is exported from Arbil and then uploaded into LAMUS (Broeder et al., 2006). Arbil was originally designed for IMDI metadata (Broeder and Wittenburg, 2006). This format has been in use for many years, and it has many fields so that it covers most needs, but also may confuse researchers and slow down the workflow with many fields to fill in. This issue has been addressed by CLARIN (Váradi et al., 2008). CLARIN provides flexible metadata fields, allowing a custom profile to be designed for each project - only the relevant metadata fields need to be offered to the end user, greatly simplifying the process of creating metadata. Arbil has now been updated to support both IMDI and Clarin metadata formats. Some users prefer to use a web application to view and edit their metadata. Many of the workflow concepts used in Arbil apply in a web environment as much as they do in the well-known desktop application. For this reason the concepts and components within Arbil are being adapted for use as modules in both environments such as the metadata table and the metadata profiles used in CLARIN metadata. This will pave the way to greater flexibility in tools such as LAMUS. Because of the flexible design of Arbil, some of its components such as the metadata table have been utilised in KinOath Kinship Archiver (Author, 2011). This application builds on the core functions of Arbil, onto which it adds an XML database to provide fast searches. Also, a plugin layer has been introduced which is being migrated back into Arbil. Therefore there will be much more powerful searches available as plugins without compromising the original design of the application. References Author. 2012. Metadata Management with Arbil. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference On Language Resources And Evaluation (LREC 2012) Satellite Workshops, pages 72–75. Istanbul. http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2012/workshops/ 11.LREC2012%20Metadata%20Proceedings.pdf Author. 2011. KinOath, Kinship Software Beta Stage of Development. Talk presented at Atelier d’initiation au traitement informatique de la parenté. salle 3, RdC, bât. Le France. 2011-12-16. D. Broeder and P. Wittenburg. 2006. The IMDI metadata framework, its current application and future direction. International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 1(2), pages 119–132. T. Váradi, S. Krauwer, P. Wittenburg, M. Wynne, and K. Koskenniemi. 2008. Clarin: Common language resources and technology infrastructure. In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’08), pages 1244–1248, Marrakech. European Language Resources Association (ELRA). http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2008/ pdf/317_paper.pdf. D. Broeder, A. Claus, F. Offenga, R. Skiba, P. Trilsbeek, and P. Wittenburg. 2006. LAMUS : the Language Archive Management and Upload System. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC’06), pages 2291–2294, Genoa. European Language Resources Association (ELRA). www.lat-mpi.eu/papers/papers- 2006/lamus-paper- final2.pdf. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26191 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26190 Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic, iso‐639‐3 kal) is an Inuit language spoken in Greenland and is the official language of the country. In this presentation we discuss a collaborative project initiated by the Greenland Language Secretariat (Oqaasileriffik) to create a bilingual Kalaallisut‐English dictionary, aimed at two groups of users, Kalaallisut speakers who are learning English and English speakers learning Kalaallisut. We discuss the content and format of the dictionary, the underlying principles upon which it is being created, and the collaborative process itself. This collaborative project involves researchers from Greenland and the US. The dictionary, intended to include something in the order of 25,000‐35,000 entries, aims to provide the necessary information for both sets of users to both comprehend and produce both languages. The two languages are typologically distinct and there is limited correspondence between what counts as a word in each language. Kalaallisut is highly polysynthetic with very productive derivational and inflectional morphology, providing challenges for what constitutes a lexical entry versus which forms are one‐off creations by speakers. Language learners need information not only about word meaning, but also about “word” creation. By the same token, much of the grammatical information included in English words is encoded in Kalaallisut suffixes, providing challenges for Kalaallisut speakers learning English. The team began its work by establishing a core set of principles including: 1. The dictionary is based on the modern standard language, as currently spoken, with all entries approved by the Greenland Language Council (Oqaasiliortut). 2. The dictionary is usage‐driven. 3. The dictionary does not replace a reference grammar but provides an internal word grammar, i.e., it includes necessary and sufficient information for a user to generate correct word forms in both languages. 4. Irregular, unpredictable or otherwise not transparent forms need to be included. 5. The dictionary should include all necessary information for proper usage such as collocations, style and register information These principles are illustrated with sample entries from both languages. Entries are created through a collaborative process, but final approval of all material rests with Oqaasiliortut, the Language Council, which is part of the Greenland Self‐ Government. This particular project illustrates not only the importance of the concrete linguistic entries, but also the significance of the collaborative process of dictionary making, and the approval process, which is controlled by the local government. Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26190 2013-03-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26189 Conference program for the 3rd International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation. Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26189 2013-02-28T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26188 Kaipuleohone is the University of Hawai‘i digital archive for audio and video recordings as well as photographs, notes, dictionaries, transcriptions, and other materials related to small and endangered languages. It was founded in 2007 to address the need for a dedicated repository for language data collected by researchers affiliated with UH. Since its inception the archive has digitized, described, and safely housed several hundred language recordings, including the personal collections of renowned linguists Derek Bickerton and Robert Blust. Kaipuleohone conforms to international standards for digital archives and is a member of the Open Language Archives Community. Digital files are stored at high resolution and are curated by ScholarSpace, the DSpace repository of UHM. Metadata conforms to the standards of OLAC, Open Archives Initiative, and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. This poster presents four aspects of Kaipuleohone: the history of the archive, the details of the current collection, the archive’s ties to the ongoing academic program at UH and the Language Documentation Training Center, and future plans to expand the archive’s outreach mission to language communities in the Asia-Pacific region. Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26188 2013-03-02T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26187 Closing ceremony of the 3rd ICLDC, including comments by Andrea Berez, Victoria Anderson, Lyle Campbell and William O'Grady. Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/10125/26187 2013-03-03T00:00:00Z