Meeting the transcription challenge

Abstract

The major challenge for language documentation in the next decade or two is what could be called the transcription challenge. This is a multilayered challenge that goes far beyond the practical challenge of speeding up the transcription process. Transcription, as practiced in language documentation, involves language making and changes the language ecology. Despite its centrality to language documentation, transcription remains critically undertheorized and understudied. Further progress in language documentation, and ultimately also its overall success, crucially depends on further investigating and understanding the transcription process, broadly conceived.