Edited by Bradley McDonnell, Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker & Gary Holton
University of Hawai‘i Press
ISBN 978-0-9973295-3-7
December 31, 2018
This volume reflects on key issues in the field of language documentation on the 20 year anniversary of Nikolaus Himmelmann’s seminal article “Documentary and descriptive linguistics” in the journal Linguistics. Himmelmann’s central argument that language documentation should “be conceived of as a fairly independent field of linguistic inquiry and practice” has prompted major theoretical and practical shifts, helping to establish documentary linguistics as a genuine subfield of linguistics. Now 20 years later we are able ask: how has this new field evolved?
In order to address this question, we invited 38 experts from around the world to reflect on either particular issues within the realm of language documentation or particular regions where language documentation projects are being carried out. The issues discussed in this volume represent a broad and diverse range of topics from multiple perspectives and for multiple purposes. Some topics have been hotly debated over the past two decades, while others have emerged more recently. Many contributors also speculate on what comes next, looking at the future of documentary linguistics from a variety of perspectives. Hence, the 31 vignettes provide not only reflections on where we have been but also a glimpse of where the field might be headed.
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Chapter 1: Introduction (Bradley McDonnell, Gary Holton and Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker)
Part I: Reimagining Documentary Linguistics
- Chapter 2: Reflections on the scope of language documentation (Jeff Good)
- Chapter 3: Reflections on reproducible research (Lauren Gawne and Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker)
- Chapter 4: Meeting the transcription challenge (Nikolaus P. Himmelmann)
- Chapter 5: Why cultural meanings matter in endangered language research (Lise Dobrin and Mark Sicoli)
- Chapter 6: Reflections on (de)colonialism in language documentation (Wesley Y. Leonard)
- Chapter 7: Reflections on public awareness (Mary S. Linn)
Part II: Key issues in language documentation
- Chapter 8: Interdisciplinary research in language documentation (Susan D. Penfield)
- Chapter 9: Reflections on language community training (Colleen M. Fitzgerald)
- Chapter 10: Reflections on funding to support documentary linguistics (Gary Holton and Mandana Seyfeddinipur)
- Chapter 11: Reflections on ethics: Re-humanizing linguistics, building relationships across difference (Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins)
- Chapter 12: Reflections on diversity linguistics: Language inventories and atlases (Sebastian Drude)
- Chapter 13: Reflections on the diversity of participation in language documentation (I Wayan Arka)
- Chapter 14: Reflections on software and technology for language documentation (Alexandre Arkhipov and Nick Thieberger)
Part III: Beyond description: Creating and using language documentations
- Chapter 15: Reflections on descriptive and documentary adequacy (Sonja Riesberg)
- Chapter 16: Reflections on documentary corpora (Sally Rice)
- Chapter 17: Reflections on the role of language documentations in linguistic research (Stefan Schnell)
- Chapter 18: Reflections on documenting the lexicon (Keren Rice)
- Chapter 19: Reflections on linguistic analysis in documentary linguistics (Bradley McDonnell)
Part IV: Fieldwork and language documentation around the world
- Chapter 20: Reflections on linguistic fieldwork (Clarie Bowern)
- Chapter 21: The state of documentation of Kalahari Basin languages (Tom Güldemann)
- Chapter 22: From comparative descriptive linguistic fieldwork to documentary linguistic fieldwork in Ghana (Felix Ameka)
- Chapter 23: Caucasus – the mountain of languages (Manana Tandashvili)
- Chapter 24: Reflections on language documentation in India (Shobhana Chelliah)
- Chapter 25: Reflections on linguistic fieldwork and language documentation in eastern Indonesia (Yusuf Sawaki and I Wayan Arka)
- Chapter 26: Reflections on linguistic fieldwork in Australia (Ruth Singer)
- Chapter 27: In search of island treasures: Language documentation in the Pacific (Alexandre François)
- Chapter 28: Reflections on language documentation in the Southern Cone (Fernando Zúñiga and Marisa Malvestitti)
- Chapter 29: Reflections on language documentation in the Chaco (Lucía Golluscio and Alejandra Vidal)
- Chapter 30: Reflections on fieldwork: A view from Amazonia (Christine Beier and Patience Epps)
- Chapter 31: Reflections on linguistic fieldwork in Mexico and Central America (Gabriela Pérez Báez)
- Chapter 32: Reflections on language documentation in North America (Daisy Rosenblum and Andrea L. Berez-Kroeker)