Language documentation on-the-move: a multipurpose endeavour

"Language documentation on-the-move: a multipurpose endeavour"

Presented by Karolin Obert at the Language Documentation and Archiving Conference, Berlin & Online, 4-6 Sept, 2024.

One request to language documenters is the creation of multipurpose records for different uses and users including the community, academic audiences, and local policymakers (e.g., Woodbury 2003; Austin 2006; Himmelmann 2006). While in theory, this is a very reasonable and necessary demand, holding up to this standard in practice can be a difficult enterprise. Here, I discuss how documentary records produced with GPS-equipped action cameras as people are walking can bridge this gap. When documenting territory with Dâw and Nadëb community members (Naduhup, Brazil), mobile recordings have proven themselves to be highly effective for capturing linguistic categories activated by naturally occurring stimuli in the environment (e.g., landscape, place name, traditional ecological knowledge etc.). Instantiations of such categories that surface spontaneously during routes can be efficiently selected and transcribed in ELAN, and video and geo-referential data o5er yet another layer for their description and linguistic analysis. For example, fauna terminology mentioned in passing by community members can be captured seamlessly; the video record of the entire route provides crucial information on the habitat of the species, and finally, the GIS record enables their mapping in relation to further aspects of the local landscape. Hence, such contextualized records allow for more accurate representations of Indigenous categories in the communities’ own terms. Moreover, integrating geo data on the ELAN timeline enables precise mapping of any category in space, which is a crucial tool for these communities to negotiate land rights with local authorities and for educational purposes. From a linguistic perspective, mobile data collections allow for novel insights into language as uttered in an underexplored realm, a dynamic one. Moreover, integrating geo-data and linguistic data adds a new layer of analysis to unravel the possible footprints of the environment in grammars and lexicons. In sum, this novel documentation method not only proves to be efficient and engaging but also holds the potential to accommodate the diverse needs and interests of various stakeholders, ranging from communities themselves to academic researchers and policymakers alike.