GIAL: New Course: Language Documentation

AL 5398 Seminar in Applied Linguistics: Language Documentation

Spring 2009, Session I (Jan. 7–Feb. 4, 2009)
Gary Simons & Steve Parker, Instructors

After completing this course, the learner will be able to describe what language documentation is (including how it differs from language description), to explain the rationale that lies behind language documentation, and to perform the basic tasks of language documentation. In addition to reading a sampling of the foundational literature in the relatively new field of documentary linguistics, the learner will gain practical, hands-on experience in carrying out the core tasks involved in a documentation project, including planning the corpus, obtaining informed consent, recording communicative events, gathering situational metadata, transcribing and translating the recordings (orally at first, and then in writing), managing all the data generated, and preparing a complete corpus for publication and archiving.

Prerequisite: LD 4350 Language & Society