Language documentation in the Southern Cone

ZÚÑIGA, FERNANDO; MALVESTITTI, MARISA

Reflections on Language Documentation. 20 years after Himmelmann 1998. Language Documentation & Conservation

University of Hawai?i at Mānoa

Lugar: Honolulu; Año: 2019; p. 295 - 302

Although many indigenous languages of Chile and Argentina have beendocumented only in the second half of the 20th century by academic anthropologistsand linguists, some languages have a comparatively long traditionof descriptive and documentary scholarship conducted by Catholic missionaries.From a present-day perspective, early descriptions and documentationsshow some shortcomings (viz., they are often fragmentary and biased inseveral respects), but they nonetheless constitute a trove of valuable resourcesfor later work and ongoing revitalization endeavors. Current documentarywork is now more balanced in terms of Himmelmann?s (1998) threeparametertypology (i.e., it pays close attention to communicative events ofdifferent kinds of modality, spontaneity, and naturalness), employs audio andvideo recordings, and takes copyright, access, and sustainability issues seriously.It is also more collaborative and empowering vis-à-vis the role playedby indigenous collaborators than in the past and tends to be reasonably multidisciplinary.