Methods
Typical steps involve recording, transcribing (often using the International Phonetic Alphabet and/or a "practical orthography" made up for that language), annotation and analysis, translation into a language of wider communication, archiving and dissemination. Critical to the project of Language Documentation is the creation of good records in the course of doing language description. These materials can be archived, though not all archives are equally adept at handling language materials preserved in varying technological formats, nor are they all equally accessible to potential users.
Language documentation complements language description which aims to describe a language's abstract system of structures and rules in the form of a grammar or dictionary. By preparing good documentation in the form of recordings with transcripts and then collections of texts and a dictionary, the linguist can do their own work better, and can also provide materials for use by speakers of the language. New technologies permit better recordings, with better descriptions, all of which can be housed in digital archives, like AILLA or PARADISEC, and made available to the speakers with little effort.
Language documentation has also given birth to new specialized publications, such as the online journal Language Documentation & Conservation and the yearbook series Language Documentation and Description.
Read more about this topic: Language Documentation
Famous quotes containing the word methods:
“Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How can you tell if you discipline effectively? Ask yourself if your disciplinary methods generally produce lasting results in a manner you find acceptable. Whether your philosophy is democratic or autocratic, whatever techniques you use—reasoning, a “star” chart, time-outs, or spanking—if it doesn’t work, it’s not effective.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)
“Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)