Language Documentation and Description

LIN4111.01) (cancelled 10/9/2023
Course System Home Terms Spring 2024 Language Documentation and Description

Course Description

Summary

This course is designed to equip students with the basic methodologies necessary to carry out linguistic fieldwork on un(der)documented languages. Students will be trained in the skills and tools of language documentation and description by working with a speaker of a language previously unknown to them. Students will learn techniques of data collection, elicitation, management, and analysis. We will implement these methodologies by taking a holistic approach to creating and annotating a corpus of language, building a lexical database, and producing a grammatical sketch. This methodological training will be situated within an ongoing discussion of the current language endangerment crisis and methods that can be implemented to mitigate it. We will further discuss ethics in language documentation and approaches to building collaborative and empowering research methodologies.

Prerequisites

Students must have previous taken "Language as System and Social Behavior" or another course that has introduced basic concepts in linguistics, such as phonology and syntax.

Because we will be working with a different language, course content will be significantly different from "LIN4109: Language Documentation and Description" offered in Spring 2023. Students who previously took LIN4109 are still eligible to sign up for this course.

Please contact the faculty member :

Instructor

  • Leah Pappas

Day and Time

Academic Term

Spring 2024

Credits

4

Course Level

4000

Maximum Enrollment

15