Category: Music

Language documentation: definitions and methods

Since its establishment in 2003, the journal Language Documentation and Description has published a number of papers that adopt a critical approach to defining what we mean by ‘Language Documentation’ (or ‘Documentary Linguistics’), its relationships to other areas of research, and the research methods that it adopts (including methods for data collection, analysis, archiving, and dissemination). Several of these papers have become widely read and referenced in the fields of language documentation, description, and support (e.g. Woodbury 2003 has been cited in 317 other publications, according to Google Scholar (accessed 2020-12-03)).

The following is a list of the 44 papers which have appeared in the journal so far that deal with these topics, along with links to their downloadable PDFs.

  • Ashmore, Louise. 2008. The role of digital video in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 5, 77-102. Link
  • Austin, Peter K. 2009. Communities, ethics and rights in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 7, 34-54. Link
  • Austin, Peter K. 2010. Current issues in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 7, 12-33. Link
  • Austin, Peter K. & Lenore Grenoble. 1997. Current trends in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 4, 12-25. Link
  • Barwick, Linda. 2005. A musicologist’s wish list: some issues, practices and practicalities in musical aspects of language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 3, 53-62. Link
  • Biesele, Megan, Lee Pratchett & Taesun Moon. 2012. Ju|’hoan and X’ao- ’aen documentation in Namibia: overcoming obstacles to community-based language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 11, 72-89. Link
  • Brickell, Timothy C. 2018. Linguistic fieldwork: perception, preparation, and practice. Language Documentation and Description 15, 179-207. Link
  • Coelho, Gail. 2005. Language documentation and ecology: areas of interaction. Language Documentation and Description 3, 63-74. Link
  • Csató, Eva A. & David Nathan. 2003. Multimedia and documentation of endangered languages. Language Documentation and Description 1, 73-84. Link
  • Dobrin, Lise. 2005. When our values conflict with theirs: linguists and community empowerment in Melanesia. Language Documentation and Description 3, 42-52. Link
  • Dobrin, Lise M., Peter K. Austin & David Nathan. 2009. Dying to be counted: the commodification of endangered languages in documentary linguistics. Language Documentation and Description  6, 37-52. Link
  • Eisenbeiss, Sonja. 2005. Documenting child language. Language Documentation and Description 3, 106-140. Link
  • Evans, Nick & Hans-Jürgen Sasse. 2006. Searching for meaning in the library of Babel: field semantics and the problems of digital archiving. Language Documentation and Description 4, 58-99. Link
  • Foley, William A. 2003. Genre, register and language documentation in literate and preliterate communities. Language Documentation and Description 1, 85-98. Link
  • Foley, William A. 2004. Language endangerment, language documentation and capacity building: challenges from New Guinea. Language Documentation and Description 2, 28-38. Link
  • Foley, William A. 2007. Reason, understanding and the limits of translation. Language Documentation and Description 4, 100-119. Link
  • Gaenszle, Martin. 2010. Documenting ceremonial dialogues: An in vitro performance and the problem of textualisation. Language Documentation and Description 8, 70-87.  Link
  • Garrett, Edward. 2014. Participant-driven language archiving. Language Documentation and Description 12, 68-84. Link
  • Grenoble, Lenore. 2007. The importance and challenges of documenting pragmatics. Language Documentation and Description 4, 145-162. Link
  • Harrison, K. David. 2005. Ethnographically informed language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 3, 22-41. Link
  • Holton, Gary. 2014. Mediating language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 12, 37-52. Link
  • Johnson, Heidi. 2004. Language documentation and archiving, or how to build a better corpus. Language Documentation and Description 2, 140-153. Link
  • Lüpke, Frederike. 2007. Research methods in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 7, 55-104. Link
  • Lüpke, Frederike. 2005. Small is beautiful: contributions of field-based corpora to different linguistic disciplines, illustrated by Jalonke. Language Documentation and Description 3, 75-105. Link
  • McGill, Stuart & Roger Blench. 2012. Documentation, development, and ideology in the northwestern Kainji languages. Language Documentation and Description 11, 90-135. Link
  • Munro, Robert. 2005. The digital skills of language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 3, 141-156. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2004. Planning multimedia documentation. Language Documentation and Description 2, 154-168. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2008. Digital archives: essential elements in the workflow for endangered languages documentation and revitalisation. Language Documentation and Description 5, 103-119. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2009. Audio responsibilities in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 6, 101-116. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2010a. Language documentation and archiving: from disk space to MySpace. Language Documentation and Description 7, 172-208. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2010b. Sound and unsound practices in documentary linguistics: towards an epistemology for audio. Language Documentation and Description 7, 262-284. Link
  • Nathan, David. 2014. Access and accessibility at ELAR, an archive for endangered languages documentation. Language Documentation and Description 12, 187-208. Link
  • Nathan, David & Peter K. Austin. 2004. Reconceiving metadata: language documentation through thick and thin. Language Documentation and Description 2, 179-187. Link
  • Pepper, Steve. 2011. Ontologies in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 9, 199-218. Link
  • Sallabank, Julia. 2010. Language documentation and language policy. Language Documentation and Description 7, 144-171. Link
  • Schembri, Adam. 2010. Documenting sign languages. Language Documentation and Description 7, 105-143.  Link
  • Seidel, Frank. 2016. Documentary linguistics: A language philology of the 21st century. Language Documentation and Description 13, 23-63. Link
  • Seifart, Frank. 2008. The representativeness of language documentations. Language Documentation and Description 5, 60-76. Link
  • Thieberger, Nicholas & Simon Musgrave. 2007. Documentary linguistics and ethical issues. Language Documentation and Description 4, 26-37. Link
  • Thomas, Michael F. 2012. Building community participation into documentation design: lessons learned in Sakun (Sukur). Language Documentation and Description 11, 59-71. Link
  • Wilbur, Joshua. 2014. Archiving for the community: Engaging local archives in language documentation projects. Language Documentation and Description 12, 85-102. Link
  • Woodbury, Anthony C. 2003. Defining documentary linguistics. Language Documentation and Description 1, 35-51. Link
  • Woodbury, Anthony C. 2007. On thick translation in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 4, 120-135. Link
  • Woodbury, Anthony C. 2014. Archives and audiences: Toward making endangered language documentations people can read, use, understand, and admire. Language Documentation and Description 12, 19-36. Link

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