Elements of Documentary Linguistics

At least, there are 3 elements that bring Documentary Linguistics together:
the endangered languages, the technologies for documentation and archiving, and the participation of linguistic/speech communities.

At the heart of it all is participation and collaboration for a common cause. It is interdisciplinary, collaborative, and open.

Documentary Linguistics: Alarm Bells and Whistles?

David Nathan, HRELP, SOAS
HRELP Seminar 23 November 2004

This talk will look at the nascent field concerned with endangered languages called "documentary linguistics", in particular examining its relationship to the use of technologies. Current projects offering key support to documentary linguistics have considerable emphasis on digital technologies and digital archiving, leading to the impression that not only are such technologies at the centre of documentary linguistics, but also that documentary linguistics is a methodology for creating language materials that are not merely "born digital" but "born archival".
What, if any, technologies are fundamental to documentary linguistics? Are they, as the name seems to imply, those of the mass media that can broadcast populist information about language endangerment; or should they be technologies that deliver usable language materials to communities? Are they digital techniques that ensure that information can be preserved intact for the long term, or should they be data encoding technologies that make data immediately searchable, retrievable, and manipulable? Perhaps there is a danger that, without a firmer foundation, documentary linguistics will be seen as a mere repository function of linguistics, just as archivists have been seen as the poor relations of historians.

Documentary Linguistics

Peter K. Austin: Current Trends in Documentation of Endangered Languages

excerpt: Documentary Linguistics

new field of linguistics “concerned with the methods,
tools, and theoretical underpinnings for compiling a
representative and lasting multipurpose record of a
natural language or one of its varieties” (Himmelmann
1998, 2006)
has developed over the last decade in large part in
response to the urgent need to make an enduring record
of the world’s many endangered languages and to
support speakers of these languages in their desire to
maintain them, fuelled also by developments in
information and communication technologies
essentially concerned with role of language speakers
and their rights and needs

Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics

Himmelmann (1998) proposed Documentary Linguistics. He distinguished Documentary Linguistics from the traditional Descriptive Linguistics. It used to be that gathered data serve the purposes of Descriptive Linguistics, in abstracting and understanding the grammar and other structures of a language. The data are not published, but only the resulting product of Descriptive analysis of the language see the light of publication, such as grammar books, dictionaries,etc. In Descriptive linguistics the data is as good only as it serve descriptive and analytic purposes.

However, in Documentary Linguistics, the data is important. A comprehensive documentation of the language of the speech community is an important work in itself. The data is independent and can be used by other fields, not only the field of Descriptive Linguistics. But other theories may help to work on the data. In Documentary Linguistics the documentation faces the challenge of sustainability into the future. And it must be made availabe especially for collaboration of many other fields, and most especially made availabe to the language communities to help in their language revitalization or development. The language communities role in the documentation and revitalizatioin is highly important.

Documentary Linguistics

There are 3 elements that contribute to Documentary Linguistics--one, is
the challenge of documenting endangered languages. Another, is the use of modern technology. The third one, is the participation of the language communities in their language development.