Research Articles

It takes two to tango: linguistic and cultural (co-)variation in digital documentation

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Abstract

Ideally, our aim in a digital documentation project is to document the linguistic and socio-cultural practices of a community as close to its reality as possible, where the format of the documentation should make it possible to take into account language variation, including differences of dialect, sociolect, register, etc., and to identify and classify the various languages spoken in a region, while also faithfully capturing the fact that speakers of these languages sometimes also share their socio-cultural traditions. The documentation format should also be able to take care of the reverse situation, where one language (linguistically speaking) is spoken by two or more ethnic communities, each with its own distinct socio-cultural traditions. The question is, of course, “How?” This question will be raised here by presenting two case studies: Kinnauri–Harijan boli and Hindi–Urdu. These two complementary case studies highlight the need to discuss questions relating to the archive format in language documentation projects. It will be suggested here that a discussion of the relationship between language and culture is necessary before the start of a documentation project, as well as during all its stages, as the assumptions made especially during the initial stages have implications for the design of the...

Keywords: digital documentation, language variation, socio-cultural traditions, cultural variation, Kinnauri, Harijan boli, Hindi, Urdu, language documentation, archive format, archive system

How to Cite:

Saxena, A., (2005) “It takes two to tango: linguistic and cultural (co-)variation in digital documentation”, Language Documentation and Description 3, 181-195. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd281