A query...

[Claire Bowern]

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

no, and no, but it is a fairly large part of current fieldwork and a 
high priority, since there are so many languages in danger of extinction 
and so few languages with good documentation. In some parts of the 
world, just about all the fieldwork is like this.

> 
> 
>> 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.

Sure, but there are many ways of making data available, and what is made 
available has huge ethical implications. Medical studies almost never 
publish the complete data for each subject, because of the ethical 
implications of publishing sensitive and traceable (individually 
identifiable) patient information.

Linguists do science, but some also do work with communities which have 
a history of being experimented on, and who dislike it intensely. We 
ignore that at our peril.

> 
> 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.

I wasn't suggesting it was the big picture. I was using a personal 
example but this is an issue that affects a lot of people at my career 
stage (a few years out of grad school with the tenure clock ticking).

> 
> 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.

This paragraph is an excellent illustration of why I was urging caution. 
The technical issues aren't just minor technical issues. To take one 
example, Brian mentioned using international standards. There are three 
international xml metadata encoding standards. And to return to my 
earlier mantra, archiving and web publication aren't the same thing.

> 
> 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.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no luddite and I'm all in favour of this, I just 
wanted to point out some very real limitations which need to be 
discussed as well, not just as minor throwaway technical issues but as 
potential deal-breakers. This is especially true in areas where language 
is regarded as a tangible entity which can be owned.

> 
> 
>> 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.

Do my 5 grey hairs I acquired dealing with our IRB count? :)

> 
> (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.)
> 

Yes, but only after a long discussion about what we were going to do, 
and continual renegotiation throughout the fieldwork, once the people 
involved had a better idea about what the work involves, what the 
consequences would most likely be, and so on.

Claire