Treehouse Guest Lecture November 9, 2004: THO 325

Language documentation and description in the digital age: An overview of initiatives for enhancing the discoverability and interoperability of linguistic resources

Jeff Good

This talk will give an overview of a number of initiatives which have the goal of developing standards and tools for the creation of "best practice" digital language documentation. Using Bird and Simons' (2003) proposal of seven dimensions of document "portability" as a framework for the discussion, a number of different issues in the creation of linguistic resources will be covered with respect to these initiatives, including metadata standards, markup languages (with a focus on XML), and the distinction between archival formats and presentation formats. In addition, attempts to model and encode the logical structure of traditional types of linguistic resources, for example, interlinearized texts and descriptive grammars, will be discussed with the goal of understanding how these resources should be adapted for the digital age. An aim of the talk will be not only to identify aspects of digital documentation which are being actively worked on but also to identify important areas which are not being worked on at present by any large-scale initiative.

Note unusual location: THO 325

-- EmilyBender - 25 Oct 2004