Article published in:
Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger: Issues of documentation, policy, and language rights
Edited by Luna Filipović and Martin Pütz
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 42] 2016
► pp. 147–170

Language documentation 20 years on

| School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
In the last decade of the 20th century a new field of language research emerged that has come to be known as ‘language documentation’ or ‘documentary linguistics’ (Himmelmann 1998, 2002, 2006; Lehmann 2001; Austin 2010; Grenoble 2010; Woodbury 2003, 2011). In this paper we explore how it was defined in the seminal work of Himmelmann (1998) and others, including what were presented as significant characteristics that distinguished language documentation from language description, and how the field has changed and evolved over the past 20 years. A focus on best practices, standards, tools and models for documentary corpora appeared in the early years, which led later to more critical discussions of the goals and methods of language documentation. The paper examines some current developments, including new approaches to language archiving, and suggests that there are opportunities for language documentation to adopt a more socially-engaged approach to languages and linguistic research, including better engagement with language revitalisation. There are also opportunities to work towards addressing what is currently a language documentation output gap through experimentation with new genres and innovations in writing and publication.
Keywords: archiving, documentary corpora, documentary linguistics, language archiving, language documentation, language revitalisation
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 03 October 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.42.07aus
References

References

Aikhenvald, A.Y.
2007 Linguistic fieldwork: Setting the scene. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60(1): 3–11.Google Scholar
Amery, R.
2009 Phoenix or relic? Documentation of languages with revitalization in mind. Language Documentation and Conservation 3(2): 138–148.Google Scholar
Aristar, A.R.
2003 The school of best practice. London: SOAS Workshop on Archives for Endangered Languages, November 21–22.Google Scholar
Aristar-Dry, H.
2004 E-MELD School of best practices in digital language documentation. Detroit: Presentation at E-MELD Conference 2004: Workshop on linguistic databases and best practice , July 15–18.
Austin, P.K.
2006a Data and language documentation. In Essentials of Language Documentation [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 178], J. Gippert, N. Himmelmann & U. Mosel (eds), 87–112. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2006b Defining language documentation. Washington DC: Paper presented at the Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics, March.Google Scholar
2007 Survival of languages. In Survival: Darwin College Lectures, E.F. Shuckburgh (ed.), 80–98. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar
2008 Training for language documentation: Experiences at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In Documenting and Revitalising Austronesian Languages [Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 1], M. Florey & V. Rau (eds), 25–41. Hawaii HI: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
2009 Meta-documentary linguistics. Kioloa: Paper given at the Aboriginal languages workshop, March 2009.
2010 Current issues in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 7, 12–33. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
2013 Language documentation and meta-documentation. In Keeping Languages Alive: Documentation, Pedagogy and Revitalization, S. Ogilvie & M. Jones (eds), 3–15. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 Language documentation in the 21st century. JournaLIPP 3: 57–71.Google Scholar
Austin, P.K. & Grenoble, L.
2007 Current trends in language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 4, 12–25. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Austin, P.K. & Sallabank, J.
2014 Endangered Languages: Ideologies and Beliefs in Language Documentation and Revitalization. London: British Academy. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 Language documentation and language revitalization: Partners or just good friends? Ms, SOAS.Google Scholar
Bell, J. & Bird, S.
2000 Preliminary study of the structure of lexicon entries. Philadelphia: Proceedings of the Workshop on Web-Based Language Documentation and Description .
Bentahila, A. & Davies, E.E.
1993 Language revival: Restoration or transformation? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 14(5): 355–374. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bird, S. & Liberman, M.
2001 A formal framework for linguistic annotation. Speech Communication 33(1–2): 23–60. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bird, S. & Simons, G.
2003 Seven dimensions of portability for language documentation and description. Language 79(3): 557–582. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Blench, R.
2008 Endangered languages in West Africa. In Language Diversity Endangered, M. Brenzinger (ed.), 140–162. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar
Bowe, C., Hughes, B. & Bird, S.
2003 Towards a general model for interlinear text. Proceedings of EMELD-03, 12 August, 2013. http://​emeld​.org​/workshop​/2003​/bowbadenbird​-paper​.html
Bowern, C.
2011 Planning a language documentation project. In The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, P.K. Austin & J. Sallabank (eds), 459–482. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Calvet, J.-L.
2006 Towards an Ecology of World Languages. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
CELP
2007 Adequacy of documentation. Document circulated at the January 2007 meeting of the Linguistic Society of America Committee on Endangered Languages and Their Preservation .
Childs, T., Good, J. & Mitchell, A.
2014 Beyond the ancestral code: Towards a model for sociolinguistic language documentation. Language Documentation and Conservation 8: 168–191.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N.
1964 Current issues in linguistic theory. In The Structure of Language, J.A. Fodor & J.J. Katz (eds), 50–118. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Coelho, G.
2005 Language documentation and ecology: Areas of interaction. In Language Documentation and Description 3, P.K. Austin (ed.), 63–74. London: SOAS. Google Scholar
Cope, L.
(ed.) 2014 Applied Linguists Needed: Cross-disciplinary Networking in Endangered Language Contexts. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crowley, T.
2007 Field Linguistics: A Beginners Guide. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Crystal, D.
2000 Language Death. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dimmendaal, G.
2004 Capacity building in an African context. In Language Documentation and Description 2, P.K. Austin (ed.), 71–89. London: SOAS. Google Scholar
Dobrin, L., Austin, P.K. & Nathan, D.
2007 Dying to be counted: Commodification of endangered languages in documentary linguistics. Language Documentation and Description 6, 37–52. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Eisenbeiss, S.
2005 Psycholinguistic contributions to language documentation. Language Documentation and Description 3, 106–140. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Farrar, S. & Langendoen, D.T.
2003a A linguistic ontology for the semantic web. GLOT International 7(3): 97–100.Google Scholar
2003b Markup and the GOLD ontology. Proceedings of EMELD-03 , 12 August 2013. http://​staff​.washington​.edu​/farrar​/documents​/inproceedings​/FarLang03a​.pdf
Farrar, S., Lewis, W.D. & Langendoen, D.T.
2002 A common ontology for linguistic concepts. Seattle WA: Proceedings of the Knowledge Technologies Conference , 12 August 2013. http://​staff​.washington​.edu​/farrar​/documents​/inproceedings​/FarLewLang02a​.pdf
Fillmore, C.
1992 ‘Corpus linguistics’ or ‘computer-aided armchair linguistics’. In Directions in Corpus Linguistics, J. Svartik (ed.), 35–45. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fishman, J.A.
1991 Reversing Language Shift: Theory and Practice of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2001 Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language Shift, Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Garrett, E.
2014 Participant driven language archiving. In Language Documentation and Description 12, D. Nathan & P.K. Austin (eds), 68–84. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Gawne, L., Kelly, B.F., Berez, A. & Heston, T.
2015 Putting practice into words: Fieldwork methodology in grammatical descriptions. Hawaii: Paper presented at ICLDC 4 Conference .
Grant, C.
2014 Music Endangerment: How Language Maintenance Can Help. Oxford: OUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, L.A.
2010 Language documentation and field linguistics: The state of the field. In Language Documentation: Practice and Values, L.A. Grenoble & N.L. Furbee (eds), 289–309. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 Language ecology and endangerment. In The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, P.K. Austin & J. Sallabank (eds), 27–45. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, L.A. & Whaley, L.J.
2006 Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Grinevald, C.
2003 Speakers and documentation of endangered languages. Language Documentation and Description 1: 52–72.Google Scholar
Gullberg, M.
2012 Bilingual multimodality and language documentation. In Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, and Utilization [Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 3], F. Seifart, G. Haig, N.P. Himmelmann, D. Jung, A. Margetts & P. Trilsbeek (eds), 46–53. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Hale, K., Krauss, M., Watahomigie, L.J., Yamamoto, A.Y., Craig, C., Jeanne, L.M. & England, N.C.
1992 Endangered languages. Language 68(1): 1–42.Google Scholar
Harrison, K.D.
2005 Ethnographically informed language documentation. Documentation and Description 3, 22–41. London: SOAS,Google Scholar
Haugen, E.
1972 The Ecology of Language. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Himmelmann, N.P.
1998 Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36: 161–195. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2002 Documentary and descriptive linguistics. In Lectures on Endangered Languages, Vol. V, O. Sakiyama & F. Endo (eds), 37–83. Kyoto: Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim,Google Scholar
2006 Language documentation: What is it and what is it good for? In Essentials of Language Documentation [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 178], J. Gippert, N.P. Himmelmann & U. Mosel (eds), 1–30. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 Reproduction and preservation of linguistic knowledge: Linguistics’ response to language endangerment. Annual Review of Anthropology 37: 337–350. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 Linguistic data types and the interface between language documentation and description. Language Documentation and Conservation 6: 187–207.Google Scholar
Hinton, L.
1993 Flutes of Fire. Berkeley CA: Heyday Books.Google Scholar
2002 How to Keep your Language Alive. Berkeley CA: Heyday BooksGoogle Scholar
2011 Revitalization of endangered languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, P.K. Austin & J. Sallabank (eds), 291–311. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley CA: Heyday BooksGoogle Scholar
Hinton, L. & Hale, K.
(eds) 2001 The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. San Diego CA: Academic Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Holton, G.
2014 Mediating language documentation. In Language Documentation and Description 12, B. Nathan & P.K. Austin (eds), 37–52. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Hornberger, N.H.
2010 Language shift and language revitalization. In The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics, R.B. Kaplan (ed.), 365–373. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar
Hymes, D.
1964 Introduction: Toward ethnographies of communication. American Anthropologist 66(6): 1–34. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kapono, E.
1995 Hawaiian language revitalization and immersion education. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 112: 121. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kroskrity, P.V.
2015 Designing a dictionary for an endangered language community: Lexicographical deliberations, language ideological clarifications. Language Documentation and Conservation 9: 140–157.Google Scholar
Lehmann, C.
2001 Language documentation: A program. In Aspects of Typology and Universals, W. Bisang (ed.), 83–97. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Google Scholar
Linn, M.-A.
2014 Living archives: A community-based language archive model. In Language Documentation and Description 12, D. Nathan & P.K. Austin (eds), 53–67. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Lüpke, F.
2009 Data collection methods for field-based language documentation. In Language Documentation and Description 6, P.K. Austin (ed.), 53–100. London: SOAS. Google Scholar
Lüpke, F. & Storch, A.
2013 Repertoires and Choices in African Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, M.
1969 Frog Where Are You? New York NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler, P.
1992 Preserving languages or language ecologies? A top-down approach to language survival. Oceanic Linguistics 31(2): 163–180. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2000 Language planning and language ecology. Current Issues in Language Planning 1(3): 306–367. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, D.
2004 Documentary linguistics: Alarm bells and whistles? Seminar presentation, SOAS . 23 November 2004.
2006 Sound and unsound documentation: Questions about the roles of audio in language documentation. Washington DC: Paper presented at the Georgetown University Roundtable on Linguistics.Google Scholar
2009 The soundness of documentation: Towards an epistemology for audio in documentary linguistics. Journal of the International Association of Sound Archives 33. www​.iasa​-web​.org​/book​/iasa​-journal​-no​-33​-june​-2009 (22 March 2012).Google Scholar
2010a Sound and unsound practices in documentary linguistics: Towards an epistemology for audio. Language Documentation and Description 7, 1–17. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
2010b Archives 2.0 for endangered languages: From disk space to MySpace. International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 4(1–2): 111–124. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 Access and accessibility at ELAR, an archive for endangered languages documentation. In Language Documentation and Description 12, D. Nathan & P.K. Austin (eds), 187–208. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Nathan, D. & Austin, P.K.
2004 Reconceiving metadata: Language documentation through thick and thin. In Language Documentation and Description 2, P.K. Austin (ed.), 179–187. London: SOAS. Google Scholar
Newman, P.
2003 The endangered languages issue as a hopeless cause. In Language Death and Language Maintenance [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 240], M. Janse & S. Tol (eds), 1–13. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 Fieldwork and fieldmethods in linguistics. Language Documentation and Conservation 3(1): 113–125.Google Scholar
2013 The law of unintended consequences: How the endangered languages movement undermines field linguistics as a scientific enterprise. Seminar presented at SOAS , 15th October.
Niedzielski, H.Z.
1992 The Hawaiian model for the revitalization of native minority languages and cultures. In Maintenance and Loss of Minority Languages [Studies in Bilingualism 1], W. Fase, K. Jaspaert & S. Kroon (eds), 369–384. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Penton, D., Bow, C., Bird, S. & Hughes, B.
2004 Towards a general model for linguistic paradigms. In Proceedings of EMELD-04 , 12 August 2013. http://​emeld​.org​/workshop​/2004​/bird​-paper​.html
Robins, R.H. & Uhlenbeck, E.M.
1991 Endangered Languages. New York NY: Berg.Google Scholar
Romaine, S.
2007 Preserving endangered languages. Language and Linguistics Compass 1(1–2): 115–132. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sallabank, J.
2012 From language documentation to language planning: Not necessarily a direct route. In Potentials of Language Documentation: Methods, Analyses, and Utilization [Language Documentation and Conservation Special Publication 3], F. Seifart, G. Haig, N.P. Himmelmann, D. Jung, A. Margetts & P. Trilsbeek (eds), 118–125. Honolulu HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
2013 Endangered Languages: Attitudes, Identities and Policies. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schultze-Berndt, E.
2006 Linguistic annotation. In Essentials of Language Documentation, J. Gippert, N.P. Himmelmann & U. Mosel (eds), 213–251. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Seifart, F.
2008 The representativeness of language documentations. Language Documentation and Description 5, 60–76. London: SOAS,Google Scholar
Sherzer, J.
1987 A discourse-centered approach to language and culture. American Anthropologist 89(2): 295–309. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Spolsky, B.
1989 Maori bilingual education and language revitalization. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 10(2): 89–106. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2003 Reassessing Maori regeneration. Language in Society 32: 553–578. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sugita, Y.
2007 Language revitalization or language fossilization? Some suggestions for language documentation from the viewpoint of interactional linguistics. In Proceedings of First Conference on Language Documentation and Linguistic Theory, P.K. Austin, O. Bond & D. Nathan (eds), 243–250. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Thieberger, N.
2012 Counting collections. Paradisec Blog 29 November 2012 <http://​www​.paradisec​.org​.au​/blog​/2012​/11​/counting​-collections/ (6 June 2015).Google Scholar
Thieberger, N., Margetts, A., Morey, S., Musgrave, S. & Schembri, A.
2012 Assessing curated corpora as research output. Paper presented to the Annual Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society , University of Western Australia.
Whalen, D.
2004 How the study of endangered languages will revolutionize linguistics. In Linguistics Today – Facing a Greater Challenge, P. van Sterkenburg (ed.), 321–342. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Response to Paul Newman. Blog post dated 3 December 2013 <http://​elar​-archive​.org​/blog​/response​-to​-paul​-newman​-by​-doug​-whalen/ (27 March 2015).
Woodbury, T.
2003 Defining documentary linguistics. Language Documentation and Description 1, 35–51. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
2011 Language documentation. In The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, P.K. Austin & J. Sallabank (eds), 159–186. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Woodbury, A.C.
2014 Archives and audiences: Toward making endangered language documentations people can read, use, understand, and admire. In Language Documentation and Description, 12: Special Issue on Language Documentation and Archiving, D. Nathan & P.K. Austin (eds), 19–36. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Yamada, R.-M.
2007 Collaborative linguistic fieldwork: Practical application of the empowerment model. Language Documentation and Conservation 1(2): 257–282.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by other publications

Grinevald, Colette & Chris Sinha
2020.  In Language, Culture and Identity – Signs of Life [Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts, 13], ► pp. 43 ff. Crossref logo
Lee, Nala H.
2020. The Status of Endangered Contact Languages of the World. Annual Review of Linguistics 6:1 ► pp. 301 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 december 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.