Facilitating Real-World Applications of Linguistic Research Data

Mary Burke

Language archives were created as repositories for linguistic research data on the world’s languages. The vast majority of language archives’ holdings are contributed by linguists in fulfillment of funding agency requirements. As Linguistics gradually adopts the principles of Open Science, effective data management and accessibility are increasingly prioritized, and even incorporated into tenure evaluations. This trend is most notable in the subfield of Language Documentation which aims to record and describe lesser-known languages facing endangerment. The materials generated during language documentation research typically include audio-video recordings, multilingual texts, photographs, and linguistic analyses (e.g., handwritten notes, annotations, outputs of proprietary software). As research data, these items inform the analysis and description of the language’s sound system and grammatical structure, while also enabling broader scientific discoveries such as cross-linguistic comparison, or attestation of typologically rare features. At the same time, this documentation may be invaluable to individuals speaking the language (the language community) as a representation of their cultural heritage. In some cases, such research data is the only extant recording of a given language. For language communities, that same research data could be leveraged to support community goals related to education, resource development, and advocacy. This poster presentation considers how research data accessibility and re-usability impacts Linguistics research as well as language community initiatives. For example, how can linguists ensure their research data is usable to diverse audiences? Where do the needs of language communities and researchers overlap and diverge? What infrastructure could support language communities’ awareness and utilization of language research data? Could alternative platforms facilitate data sharing with language communities? This exploration of real-world applications of language data seeks to improve accessibility both within academia, and beyond, with minimal duplication of researchers’ efforts.