Documentary and descriptive linguistics

Bibliographic Data

ID3989202
AuthorsNikolaus P Himmelmann (0000-0002-4385-8395, corresponding author)
Year1998
Volume36
Issue1
Publication date1998-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.1998.36.1.161
OpenAlexW2014840417
LanguageEN
Citations received126
References cited25

Much of the work that is labeled deseriptive within linguistics comprises two activities, the collection of primary data and a (low-level) analysis of these data. These are indeed two separate activities as shown by the fact that the methods employed in each activity differ substantially. To date, the field concerned with the first aetivity — called doeumentary linguisties here — has received very little attention from linguists. It is proposed that documentary linguistics be conceived of as a fairly independent field of linguistic inquiry and practice that is no longer linked exclusively to the descriptive framework. A format for language documentations (in contrast to language deseriptions) is presented (section 2), and various practical and theoretical issues connected with this format are discussed. These include the rights of the individuals and communities contributing to a language doeumentation (section 3.1), the parameters for the selection of the data to be included in a doeumentation (section 3.2), and the assessment of the quality of such data (section 3.3)

Applied linguistics · Clinical linguistics · Contrastive linguistics · Corpus linguistics · Linguistic description · Linguistics · Media linguistics · Quantitative linguistics · Sociology · Text linguistics · Theoretical linguistics · Linguistic research and analysis · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy