A query...

Mark P. Line mark at polymathix.com
Tue Oct 24 17:15:43 UTC 2006


Claire Bowern wrote:
> Mark P. Line wrote:
>>
>> 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.

Okay. I guess I was asking whether or not the needs of salvage linguistics
should be driving the way the greater linguistics community operates.

I think the answer is 'no'. I do understand that the usual scientific
methodologies must often be bent (but not broken) in salvage science.


>> 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.

Right. As I said before, it's an ethical issue that needs to be addressed
and resolved. Forebearance due to lack of ethically viable means due to
lack of ethical analysis would not be the best choice.


> 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.

Absolutely. That means that people who intensely dislike having linguists
in their midst probably shouldn't have to have linguists in their midst.
That's another ethical issue, and another cross-cultural one to boot.


>> 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.

I don't know of any major technical issues in this area.


> To take one example, Brian mentioned using international standards. There
> are three international xml metadata encoding standards.

That is certainly a minor issue from where I'm sitting.


> And to return to my earlier mantra, archiving and web publication aren't
> the same thing.

If the archive is located in webspace, what differences are you thinking of?


>> 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.

Right, the cross-cultural ethics already mentioned. I even ran into that
particular problem myself with Maori.


>>> 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? :)

Hehe.


>> (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.

So, did you go into the electronics of your audio equipment so that they
understood all about semiconductors and stuff?

No, of course not. So why isn't it possible to gain the same level of
"informed" consent with respect to the way you wish to allow other
researchers like you look at the data sometimes?


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX



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