LSA Annual Meeting Albuquerque 2006

[Gary Holton]

I agree wholeheartedly that a general documentation "how-to" is much
needed. Video is a very important area to cover. I have a lot of video
with dark faces in a corner of the room.  And though I've learned a lot
from working with film people, it's also clear that linguists cannot
meet the often demanding standards of filmmakers (sorry, I'm not going
to lug 50 kg. of lighting gear and a generator to the field!). What's
needed is a short course in "video for linguistic documentation". Some
sort of middle ground between home video skills and hi-def videography.

Emily raises a good point about human subjects, though I would caution
that this could almost be a  workshop unto itself. The human subjects
and IRB issues have been huge for all aspects of linguistic research,
not just documentation. But we would do well to attend at least to the
intellectual property aspects in a documentation tutorial.

Gary




On Mar 9, 2005, at 6:38 AM, Emily M. Bender wrote:

> Hi Jeff,
>
> I think the audio/video tutorial sounds great, and would tend to
> agree that there is less knowledge out there about how to do things
> right in this domain.  Two things I would consider adding:
>
> 1) Human subjects concerns:  Are these different for video than
> audio?  How do you plan appropriately ahead of time so that your
> recordings are a) legitimate for your own research and b) shareable?
>
> 2) Where's the best place to get recording equipment/tapes?
> What sources of funding will cover this kind of equipment?
>
>> Also, in writing this, I realize that we might want to think "big"
>> and try
>> to have an information "packet" accompanying the tutorial summarizing
>> all
>> this information. (Perhaps just as a .pdf on a web site.)
>
> Absolutely a web page, maybe even a wiki?  Perhaps also a handout.
>
> Emily