RNLD – Endangered Languages and Cultures

Guiding language consultants’ individual projects: Negotiating organizational issues in the field – a MLIP recap

8 April 20167 April 2016 by rsinger

Rosey Billington recaps the March Linguistics in the Pub (LIP), a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

In Melbourne, the first Linguistics in the Pub (LIP) of 2016 was held on the 23rd March at University Hotel. Our topic was “Guiding language consultants’ individual projects: Negotiating organizational issues in the field”, and the discussion was led by Elena Mihas (James Cook University/U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).

Linguists involved in language documentation work closely with users of a language to collect data during fieldwork, but there are additional possibilities for engaging in productive work with language consultants, both while the researcher is there, and in between visits. Building on previous LIP discussions of supporting community researchers and models of community engagement, we considered some of the ways scaled-up language documentation work might be implemented, with mutual benefit. Some background information, and links to suggested readings, can be found with the event details.

Open access and intimate fieldwork

15 March 201414 March 2014 by rsinger

A report on the Linguistics in the Pub discussion Tuesday 11^th March, Prince Alfred Hotel, Grattan St, Melbourne.

This Linguistics in the Pub discussion brought together fieldworkers who do research in Indigenous Australia, Africa, South Asia, Papua New Guinea and Nepal, as well as a computational linguist who has developed software to automate language documentation. The linguists were not all Australian, in fact we were lucky to have four participants who identify as European who are living in Australia, temporarily or permanently. The linguists’ experience in language documentation ranged from between 6-30 years and between them had deposited in the digital archives: DoBeS, Paradisec and ELAR. The timeliness of this discussion is demonstrated by David Nathan’s very recent ELAC post on the same topic.

Languages in the News (from RNLD’s Felicity Houwen)

8 December 2011 by Nick Thieberger

After the recent LIP discussion about languages in the popular media we decided to take a look at the way indigenous and endangered languages are represented in the press. Looking through the articles listed on the Languages in the News page on RNLD’s website (www.rnld.org/news) we focused on how Indigenous languages are represented, and what kind of themes, languages, and locations gain media attention. This will be useful in planning how we can better use the media in the future. Here is an overview of the Languages in the News 2011.

Books, HTML, audio, images – falling out from fieldwork

10 June 201128 May 2011 by Nick Thieberger

I’ll be going to Vanuatu next month courtesy of Catriona Hyslop’s DoBeS project, to help build an installation of three computer-based interactive dictionaries (Vurës, Tamambo and South Efate) for the Museum there. We will have hyperlinked dictionaries with sound and images where possible. All of this will be HTML-based for low maintenance and to allow new dictionaries to be added to the set over time. This post is aimed at outlining the method used to get these various files into deliverable formats and follows on from an earlier one where I talked about using ITunes to get media back to the village.

Consortium on Training in Language Documentation and Conservation (CTLDC)

5 February 201119 November 2010 by Nick Thieberger

I recently attended a symposium titled Models for capacity development in language documentation and conservation hosted by ILCAA at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The symposium brought together a group of people involved in supporting language work in the Asia-Pacific region in various ways (see the website for a full list): academic (Institute of Linguistics, Minhsiung, Taiwan, Beijing, China, Goroka, PNG, Batchelor, Australia, Bangkok, Thailand) and community-based (Manokwari, West-Papua; Tshanglalo, Bhutan; Bhasha Research Centre and Adivasi Academy, Gudjarat, India; Miromaa, Australia), using film (Sorosoro, France), or archiving language records (PARADISEC). The aim of the meeting was to build a network that would continue to link between training activities to support language work, the Consortium on Training in Language Documentation and Conservation (CTLDC), whose planning group members are listed here.

How to import a basic transcript into ELAN

5 February 201129 November 2008 by admin

The problem: you have text files and audio files, but the text files are not aligned to the audio files.
I imagine there are a few readers out there who have transcriptions of audio files that never made it past an utterance per line text file. This is a post for you, if you’d like to know how to import and time-align those files in ELAN.

Suzzy Data Workshop – Guest blogger Bruce Birch

5 February 201111 December 2006 by admin

Dear ELAN Workshop attendees, and anyone who might find this of interest,
There were a few loose ends left at the end of the ELAN workshop last week. I’d particularly like to address one, the question as to whether we should aim for a standard set of ELAN templates which everyone uses.

Sustainable Data from Digital Fieldwork Conference

5 February 201118 October 2006 by admin

Our December conference is almost full, so if you were thinking of coming along, now is the time to register! The preliminary schedule is up, papers have been reviewed, everything is going along nicely (touch wood). The third day of the conference is a workshop, with sections on audio and video recording, transcribing and managing … Read more

Sustainable data from digital fieldwork: a preliminary program

5 February 201110 October 2006 by admin

The preliminary schedule for the conference “Sustainable data from digital fieldwork: from creation to archive and back” is now up. There looks to be some really interesting projects on display. I had a sneak peek at EOPAS, a project to create a workflow and display interlinearised texts, and annodex, a project to display multiple streams … Read more

Sustainable data from fieldwork: workshop

5 February 20118 October 2006 by admin

RNLD in collaboration with the conference “Sustainable data from fieldwork” is offering a day-long session on the creation, organisation, annotation and display of digital media. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in making digital recordings and annotating them. If you’re new to shoebox or ELAN and have any questions about using it, and you have your own data, then bring along your laptop. The workshop will be held at Sydney University on Wednesday, December 6, 2006.
Read on for the specifics