A query...

[Mark P. Line]

Claire Bowern wrote:
> Dan Everett wrote:
>> Solutions to this kind of thing include peer-review (I believe that
>> it fails a lot, but it is still vital), making data available, and
>> replication of results. In today's fieldwork, for example, I would
>> like to see every fieldworker (with appropriate permissions from
>> native speakers, governments, etc.) make their data available
>> on-line, field notes, sound files, etc. To do this, future grants
>> would need to have funds for digitization of data and storage of
>> data, following guidelines that are now becoming standard in the
>> field.
>
> (snip)
>
> . Applying for such funds would put the grant totals through the roof.
> Not only are linguistics grants usually smaller than physics grants,
> etc, the pool of available money is much smaller. If more people apply
> for bigger grants which include a large digitization component (on top
> of other expenses) we're soon going to have to choose between recording
> the last speakers of undescribed language Xish and putting materials of
> Yish on the web.

Is all linguistic fieldwork currently limited to recording the last
speakers of previously undescribed languages?

Should it be?


> Such work is incredibly time-consuming, even when the materials are
> recorded digitally in the first place. To put it bluntly - I can't spend
> time creating a Bardi online digital archive, even assuming I got
> speakers' permission (which I don't think they'd give), because a) it
> would take time away from doing things that the Bardi community can
> access; b) it would hurt my tenure chances, because it would take time
> away from doing work that counts in tenure cases (and I already spend as
> much time as I think is wise on point (a)); c) I have a heap of things
> that I want to write about on the language, and I'd rather do that than
> let someone else do it because I've spent my time making data available.
> After all, that sort of work is the main reason I'm an academic linguist.


In my view, making data available to other researchers is part of doing
science. Even salvage science is science.

Looking at one's own day-planner is not really the big picture. You can go
ahead and do salvage linguistics at breakneck speed and still make the
data available sooner or later -- if there's an infrastructure in place
that's adequate to the task and easy for you to use.

So what I think Dan was suggesting is that the field linguistics community
should evolve a mechanism to facilitate the sharing of data online. Even
the busiest field linguist keeps her data *somewhere*. The engineering
problem is therefore to provide media and venues in which she can keep her
data such that it is visible to other researchers. Technical issues such
as data formats and controlled access can be addressed and resolved.

You keep audio recordings of Bardi speakers? If you do, it's because audio
technology exists to do so, because you've learned to use it, and because
you've found that the medium is useful.

What Dan and others (including myself) foresee is that you will keep
online collections of Bardi data -- because the online technology exists
to do so, you will have learned to use it, and you will have found that
the medium is useful.


> Even the "permissions" aspect Dan mentions is not a minor issue. How do
> you get informed consent for putting language materials on the web from
> people who've never used a computer?

That is an ethical issue, and one I'd like to see the grey eminences among
us discuss and resolve.

(I have an opinion, but I'm not a grey eminence. I would be wondering if
you had informed consent to collect linguistic data from people who have
never studied linguistics.)


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX