The Ka'vi Sà'án Sàvǐ Project: Turning fieldwork data into illustrated (audio)books
Presenter(s)
Affiliation
Topic
Language as a Vehicle of Culture
Type
Papers
Abstract
One of the many aspects of language documentation involves the creation of a corpus of recorded, transcribed and annotated texts in the language of study. This is often done for the purpose of analyzing grammar, but also serves as an important record of the language for maintenance or future revitalization. However, there is often a gap between archived documentation and the production of accessible outcomes from it.
Printed story books are a relatively simple product that linguists can help create without the need for much external funding. While it may take a team as long as two hours to transcribe, translate, and review one minute of language use (verifying tones, considering alternate translations, etc.), creating a stable presentational outcome of the work takes relatively little time and technical expertise.
There is often a need for storybooks for the community, and what better sources for those than the narratives community members share in their own language(s) in documentation projects? These stories can present specific grammar lessons while focusing on daily life, folklore, etc. and encouraging Indigenous self-representation. Books and audiobooks can be very powerful tools for the community, be it as materials for adult language learning, for encouraging family language and cultural transmission, and overcoming stigmas about the status of usually unwritten languages. In addition, in diaspora communities, such storybooks can help foster the multilingual repertoire of the community while emphasizing the importance of maintaining one’s own language and culture.
In this presentation we will present the project Ka’vi Sà'án Sàvǐ (Read in Mixtec), a collaboration between outsider linguists, community linguists and Mixtec illustrators to turn Fieldwork recordings into illustrated trilingual story books and audio books. We will outline our process and methods to establish and maintain collaboration, as well as to create the text and video outcomes of the project.
