Research Articles

Data - but data from what?

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Abstract

I was once confident of what ‘language’ was, where its boundaries lay, and hence what might count as data for documenting it. But I am no longer at all sure. Nor am I clear where information about a given language should best be found, or how and by whom a language should be documented. My uncertainties are founded in my own puzzles over the many years that I’ve worked, mainly as an anthropologist, on aspects of unwritten literature, performance and communication, based both in comparative reading and fieldwork in Africa and Britain. The documentation of endangered languages remains an important and inspiring endeavour. But it is clearly neither a simple nor a neutral process. Like others no doubt I continue to puzzle over what can be delimited as ‘language’, and hence, inevitably, over what can count as ‘data’ and what would be needed to document a language. Whatever ‘language’ is or is not taken to be – written text, performance, abstract system, meaning, action, people deploying resources from across the interpenetrating modes of human communication, or even, by now, an outdated term - there is clearly no single ‘right’ or (perhaps) cross-culturally neutral or a-political view of it.

Keywords: language, data, language documentation, methodology, endangered languages, definitions

How to Cite:

Finnegan, R., (2008) “Data - but data from what?”, Language Documentation and Description 5, 13-28. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd248