In a recent paper Jeremy Nordmoe, a friend and colleague, states that:
Because most linguists archive documents infrequently, they will never be experts at doing so, nor will they be experts in the intricacies of metadata schemas.
My initial reply is:
You are d@#n right! and it is because archives are not sexy enough!
Bush house: the BBC World Service is leaving its home after 71 years
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The online version of the SIL Bibliography contains a subset of over 29,000 citations from the more than 40,000 publications representing 75 years of SIL International's language research in over 2,700 languages.
Finding Resources through SIL.org's (as of 2 August 2012) Bibliography can be a challenge at times - Maybe even a time-wasting endeavor. Time wasting because it might not be very useful to consult the online Bibliography.
The challenging aspect which affects usefulness is primarily three fold:
In a team framework where there are several members of a research team and the job requirements call for the sharing of bibliographic data (of materials referenced) as well as the actual resources being referenced. In this environment there needs to be a central repository for sharing both kinds of data. This is true for small localized (geographically) groups as well as large distributed research teams. New researchers joining a existing team need to be able to “plug-in” to existing foundational work on the project and be able to access bibliographic data as well as the resources those bibliographic details point to. It is my point here to outline some of the current challenges involved in trying to overcoming the collaborative obstacle when working in the fields of Linguistics and Language Documentation.This sentiment is echoed by many in the world of science. Here is someone on Zetero’s forums [INSERT LINK]. (Though Zetero does claim to combat some of these issues.)
Some researchers in linguistics (in my acquaintance) have been less than excited about the notion of asking for socio-linguistic data or socio-personal data from language informants. The objection has been that it is just bad form. While I am a great advocate of personal privacy (especially in digital formats), I see that one of the most informative parts of the language documentation process is understanding who the speakers being recording or being worked with are. Language variation is fundamentally connected with identity. While crucial elements of how a community segments itself along identity lines may not be known for several years, having a robust socio-cultural or socio-personal questionare about the language informants will later help place the documentation data in perspective of the larger waves of variation in the community.
This is to say, I am thoroughly convinced that a socio-linguistic questionare is important as part of the language documentation process. It might not need to be done first, but it will help researchers and future users of archived material understand where to place these speech samples in context of that speakers society.
The outstanding question, and one with a variable answer is how to appropriately approach the questions in the questionare. Should the questionare be approached formally? Or should it be asked in conversational format? Should it be elicited digitally? One of the interesting things about eliciting things digitally is that they may have the appearance to be less intrusive because they are less formal. While I have no empirical evidence based on years of cross cultural work, I do have the Facebook phenomena. That is minority language users all over the world are using Facebook. And Facebook is collection (and allowing the users to volunteer) and then verifying the users’ provided data.
Facebook User Base Graph from 2010
Below is a list of elements which Facebook is collecting (it is also collecting log-in locations and times). So, some of these questions are certainly in-scope of what language documenters would minimally like to know about their indigenous language speaking informants and collaborators. Others of these questions are certainly not in-scope for the recommended socio-linguistic profile from language documenters or socio-linguists.
| What info is available? | What is it? | Where can I find it? |
|---|---|---|
| About Me | Information you added to the About section of your timeline like relationships, work, education, where you live and more. It includes any updates or changes you made in the past and what’s currently in the About section of your timeline. | Activity Log |
| Account Status History | The dates when your account was reactivated, deactivated, disabled or deleted. | Expanded Archive |
| Address | Your current address or any past addresses you had on your account. | Expanded Archive |
| Alternate Name | Any alternate names you have on your account (ex: a maiden name or a nickname). | Expanded Archive |
| Apps | All of the apps you subscribe to. | Expanded Archive |
| Birthday Visibility | How your birthday appears on your timeline. | Expanded Archive |
| Chat | A history of the conversations you’ve had on Facebook Chat. | Downloaded Info |
| Check-ins | All of the places you’ve checked into. | Downloaded Info Activity Log |
| Connections | The people who have liked your Page or Place, RSVPed to your event, installed your app or checked in to your advertised place within 24 hours of viewing or clicking on an ad or Sponsored Story. | Activity Log |
| Currency | Your preferred currency on Facebook. If you use Facebook Payments, this will be used to display prices and charge your credit cards. | Expanded Archive |
| Current City | The city you added to the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Date of Birth | The date you added to Birthday in the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Deleted Friends | The people you’ve unfriended. | Expanded Archive |
| Education | Any information you added to Education in the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Emails | Email addresses added to your account (even those you may have removed). | Expanded Archive |
| Events | Events you’ve joined or been invited to. | Activity Log |
| Family | Friends you’ve indicated are family members. | Expanded Archive |
| Favorite Quotes | Information you’ve added to the Favorite Quotes section of the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Friend Requests | Pending sent and received friend requests. | Expanded Archive |
| Friends | A list of your friends. | Downloaded Info |
| Gender | The gender you added to the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Groups | A list of groups you belong to on Facebook. | Downloaded Info |
| Hidden from News Feed | Any friends, apps or pages you’ve hidden from your News Feed. | Expanded Archive |
| Hometown | The place you added to hometown in the About section of your timeline (profile). | Downloaded Info |
| IP Addresses | A list of addresses where you’ve logged into your Facebook account. | Expanded Archive |
| Last Location | The last location associated with an update. | Activity Log |
| Likes on Other’s Posts | Posts, photos or other content you’ve liked. | Activity Log |
| Likes on Your Posts from others | Likes on your own posts, photos or other content. | Activity Log |
| Likes on Other Sites | Likes you’ve made on other sites off of Facebook. | Activity Log |
| Locale | The language you see on Facebook is based on where you’re located. | Expanded Archive |
| Logins | IP address, date and time associated with logins to your Facebook account. | Expanded Archive |
| Logouts | IP address, date and time associated with logouts from your Facebook account. | Expanded Archive |
| Messages | Archive of messages you’ve sent and received on Facebook. | Downloaded Info |
| Name | The name on your Facebook account. | Downloaded Info |
| Name Changes | Any changes you’ve made to the original name you used when you signed up for Facebook. | Expanded Archive |
| Networks | Networks (affiliations with schools or workplaces) that you belong to on Facebook. | Expanded Archive |
| Notes | Any notes you’ve written and published to your account. | Activity Log |
| Notification Settings | A list of all your notifications and whether you have email and text enabled or disabled for each. | Expanded Archive |
| Pages You Admin | A list of pages you admin. | Expanded Archive |
| Phone Numbers | Mobile phone numbers you’ve added to your account. | Expanded Archive |
| Photos | Any photos you’ve uploaded to your account. | Downloaded Info |
| Physical Tokens | Badges you’ve added to your account. | Expanded Archive |
| Pokes | A list of who’s poked you and who you’ve poked. | Expanded Archive |
| Political Views | Any information you added to Political Views in the About section of timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Your Posts | Anything you posted to your own timeline, like photos, videos and status updates. | Activity Log |
| Posts by Others | Anything you posted to someone else’s timeline (profile), like photos, videos and status updates. | Activity Log |
| Recent Activities | Actions you’ve taken and interactions you’ve recently had. | Activity Log |
| Registration Date | The date you joined Facebook. | Activity Log |
| Religious Views | The information you added to Religious Views in the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Screen Names | The screen names you’ve added to your account, and the service they’re associated with. You can also see if they’re hidden or visible on your account. | Expanded Archive |
| Searches | Searches you’ve made on Facebook. | Activity Log |
| Spoken Languages | The languages you added to Spoken Languages in the About section of your timeline. | Expanded Archive |
| Status Updates | Any status updates you’ve posted. | Activity Log |
| Subscribers | A list of people who are subscribed to you. | Expanded Archive |
| Subscriptions | A list of people you subscribe to. | Activity Log |
| Tag Suggestions Template | A unique number based on a comparison of the photos you're tagged in. We use this template to help your friends tag you in the photos they upload. | Expanded Archive |
| Work | Any information you’ve added to Work in the About section of your timeline. | Downloaded Info |
| Videos | Videos you’ve posted. | Activity Log |
Is the role of a dictionary to regulate or to standardize spelling? Is it to validate a speech variety as being real or a bon fide language? Or is it for documenting and establishing the relationships and connections between things (plants, animals, fish, spirits/gods, medicines, etc.) as they are emicly viewed, for connecting people via collaboration, or connecting related concepts and their classes together into documented sets? Or even connecting these things and relationships as they are viewed in one culture to the same things and relationships as they are viewed in another culture or more broadly cross-culturally? Continue reading
I have been thinking through some of the presentation issues for presenting SIL International’s work on the web. As part of this I have also been looking at other organizations which are part of the language documentation and minority language revitalization movement. I recently ran across several nicely done web sites.
National Geographic Genographic Project
National Geographic Genographic Project
I have been doing some thinking about what would make OLAC search more valuable to its current users and to its targeted users. One of the things which would make it more useful would be if the NSF, a partial funder for OLAC and OLAC search, would aggregate its language related grants, scholarships, fellowships and awards through OLAC.
Some of these Grant proposals are really well written, and well cited documents which explain a certain snapshot of the language situation. Even the announcements that a grants like From Endangered Language Documentation to Phonetic Documentation has been awarded would allow other researchers to know that someone has applied or been awarded a block of funding to work on a particular language situation.
Notice of NSF Grant award
I was particularly happy to find that NSF does have a grant offering and grant awarded search section. But aggregating this knowledge with prior research would really give interested parties in particular languages the integrated perspective.
I once listend to a Creative Commons Salon titled: What Does it Mean to Be Open in a Data-Driven World? and in that discussion there was a great discussion on what it means to have data which flows and is openMinute 50 has a really interesting comment about sharing scientific data.
Several months ago, I posted a question to Facebook about digital literacy.
What is the role or place of Digital Literacy in a company that values literacy as being vital to reaching its goals?
I have had several months to contemplate the question and I realize that I was a bit ambiguous in my question, or rather my question could not have been understood concisely. Digital Literacy can and is used to mean Continue reading