Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions
Language documentation and description are closely related practices, often performed as part of the same fieldwork project on an un(der)-studied language. Research trends in recent decades have seen a great volume of publishing in regards to the methods of language documentation, however, it is not...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81395 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47488 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24731 |
| _version_ | 1811693735707148288 |
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| author | Gawne, Lauren Kelly, Barbara F. Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L. Heston, Tyler |
| author2 | School of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Humanities and Social Sciences Gawne, Lauren Kelly, Barbara F. Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L. Heston, Tyler |
| author_sort | Gawne, Lauren |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Language documentation and description are closely related practices, often performed as part of the same fieldwork project on an un(der)-studied language. Research trends in recent decades have seen a great volume of publishing in regards to the methods of language documentation, however, it is not clear that linguists' awareness of the importance of robust data-collection methods is translating into transparency about those methods or data citation in resultant publications. We analyze 50 dissertations and 50 grammars from a ten-year span (2003-2012) to assess the current state of the field. Publications are critiqued on the basis of transparency of data collection methods, analysis and storage, as well as citation of primary data. While we found examples of transparent reporting in these areas, much of the surveyed research does not include key information about methodology or data. We acknowledge that descriptive linguists often practice good methodology in data collection, but as a field we need to build a better culture with regard to making this clear in research writing. Thus we conclude with suggested benchmarks for the kind of information we believe is vital for creating a rich and useful research methodology in both long and short format descriptive research writing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T06:56:24Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/81395 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T06:56:24Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/813952020-10-08T07:11:08Z Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions Gawne, Lauren Kelly, Barbara F. Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L. Heston, Tyler School of Humanities and Social Sciences Linguistics Language Documentation and Description DRNTU::Humanities::Linguistics Language documentation and description are closely related practices, often performed as part of the same fieldwork project on an un(der)-studied language. Research trends in recent decades have seen a great volume of publishing in regards to the methods of language documentation, however, it is not clear that linguists' awareness of the importance of robust data-collection methods is translating into transparency about those methods or data citation in resultant publications. We analyze 50 dissertations and 50 grammars from a ten-year span (2003-2012) to assess the current state of the field. Publications are critiqued on the basis of transparency of data collection methods, analysis and storage, as well as citation of primary data. While we found examples of transparent reporting in these areas, much of the surveyed research does not include key information about methodology or data. We acknowledge that descriptive linguists often practice good methodology in data collection, but as a field we need to build a better culture with regard to making this clear in research writing. Thus we conclude with suggested benchmarks for the kind of information we believe is vital for creating a rich and useful research methodology in both long and short format descriptive research writing. Published version 2019-01-16T06:08:03Z 2019-12-06T14:30:01Z 2019-01-16T06:08:03Z 2019-12-06T14:30:01Z 2017 Journal Article Gawne, L., Kelly, B. F., Berez-Kroeker, A. L., & Heston, T. (2017). Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions. Language Documentation & Conservation, 11, 157-189. 1934-5275 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81395 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47488 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24731 en Language Documentation & Conservation © 2017 The Author(s) (published by University of Hawaii Press). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. 33 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Linguistics Language Documentation and Description DRNTU::Humanities::Linguistics Gawne, Lauren Kelly, Barbara F. Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L. Heston, Tyler Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title | Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title_full | Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title_fullStr | Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title_short | Putting practice into words : the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| title_sort | putting practice into words the state of data and methods transparency in grammatical descriptions |
| topic | Linguistics Language Documentation and Description DRNTU::Humanities::Linguistics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/81395 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47488 http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24731 |
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