- Epistemics, Evidentiality, Computer Mediated Communication, Tibeto-Burman Linguistics, Social Cognition, Language Documentation, and 23 moreGesture Studies, Open Access Books in Linguistics, Communities of Practice (Languages And Linguistics), Gesture, Fieldwork in linguistics, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Dictionary, Reported Speech, Lolcats, Basic Linguistic Theory, Description of Langauges, Language Play, Categorisation, Langauge Play, Languages and Linguistics, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Language Acquisition, World Englishes, Sign Languages, Anthropological Linguistics, Linguistic Typology, and Sino-Tibetan Linguisticsedit
I have decided to no longer post publications to Academia.edu. Instead you can download them at: http://laurengawne.com/research/publications/ For some of what prompted this decision, see Mark Dingemanse's blog post:... more
I have decided to no longer post publications to Academia.edu. Instead you can download them at: http://laurengawne.com/research/publications/
For some of what prompted this decision, see Mark Dingemanse's blog post: http://ideophone.org/academia-edu-poor-metadata-vanity/
For some of what prompted this decision, see Mark Dingemanse's blog post: http://ideophone.org/academia-edu-poor-metadata-vanity/
Hyolmo communities have resided in the Lamjung and Ramechhap districts of Nepal for at least a century, and are part of a historical trend of group migration away from the Hyolmo homelands. These communities have taken different... more
Hyolmo communities have resided in the Lamjung and Ramechhap districts of Nepal for at least a century, and are part of a historical trend of group migration away from the Hyolmo homelands. These communities have taken different approaches to constructing their identities as belonging to the Hyolmo diaspora; in Lamjung, people readily identify as Hyolmo, while in Ramechhap people accept their Hyolmo history, but have also developed an identity as Kagate (and now Syuba). In this paper I trace these groups' migration histories. I then look at the variety of names used in reference to these communities, which helps us to understand their historical and contemporary relationships with Hyolmo. Finally, I examine contemporary cultural and linguistic practices in Ramechhap and Lamjung, to see how communities perform their identity as Kagate or Hyolmo, and as modern Buddhists of Tibetan origin in Nepal.
Research Interests:
This paper introduces readers to mapmaking as part of language documentation. We discuss some of the benefits and ethical challenges in producing good maps, drawing on linguistic geography and GIS literature. We then describe current... more
This paper introduces readers to mapmaking as part of language documentation. We discuss some of the benefits and ethical challenges in producing good maps, drawing on linguistic geography and GIS literature. We then describe current tools and practices that are useful when creating maps of linguistic data, particularly using locations of field sites to identify language areas/boundaries. We demonstrate a basic workflow that uses CartoDB, before demonstrating a more complex workflow involving Google Maps and TileMill. We also discuss presentation and archiving of mapping products. The majority of the tools identified and used are open source or free to use.
Research Interests:
The Indigenous population of Australia makes up approximately three per cent of the overall Australian population, with the majority living in New South Wales. However, the Northern Territory, with a total population of under 250,000, has... more
The Indigenous population of Australia makes up approximately three per cent of the overall Australian population, with the majority living in New South Wales. However, the Northern Territory, with a total population of under 250,000, has the highest percentage of Indigenous residents at 30 per cent. In this chapter, we focus on the education and language of Indigenous children living in the Northern Territory who are attending schools classified as remote or very remote22 rather than those attending schools situated in urban localities.
Indigenous children in Australia grow up in a variety of contexts, but those growing up in remote communities are often raised in complex linguistic environments with a great deal of variation in terms of their access to amenities and services. The data that we will be drawing on for this chapter comes from a series of studies of children living in different remote communities in the Northern Territory.
Indigenous children in Australia grow up in a variety of contexts, but those growing up in remote communities are often raised in complex linguistic environments with a great deal of variation in terms of their access to amenities and services. The data that we will be drawing on for this chapter comes from a series of studies of children living in different remote communities in the Northern Territory.
Research Interests:
Grammatically encoded evidentials that marks ‘reported speech’, ‘hearsay’ or ‘quotation’ are attested in languages from a variety of families, but often receive cursory description. In this paper I give a detailed account of the reported... more
Grammatically encoded evidentials that marks ‘reported speech’, ‘hearsay’ or ‘quotation’ are attested in languages from a variety of families, but often receive cursory description. In this paper I give a detailed account of the reported speech particle ló in Lamjung Yolmo, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal. This particle is used when the speaker is reporting previously communicated information. This information may be translated from another language, may be a non-verbal interaction turn or may have been an incomplete utterance. Speakers choose to use the reported speech particle in interaction, and the pragmatic effect is usually to add authority to the propositional content. Detailed description of the use of reported speech evidentials in interaction across different languages will provide a better understanding of the range of their function.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a case study looking at the interaction between lexical tone and post-lexical intonation in two very similar Tibetic language varieties spoken in Nepal: Lamjung Yolmo and Kagate. In these two varieties, we find... more
This paper presents a case study looking at the interaction between lexical tone and post-lexical intonation in two very similar Tibetic language varieties spoken in Nepal: Lamjung Yolmo and Kagate. In these two varieties, we find preliminary evidence that in both monosyllabic and disyllabic words, lexical tone is only specified at the left edge of the word, while the right edge of the word is ‘free’ to take post-lexical intonation tones. We present evidence of post-lexical intonation on these ‘free’ right edges both phrase medially and phrase finally. These results suggest that a description of the tone system of these languages without reference to the intonational system is too simplistic, and any future analyses should incorporate descriptions of both lexical tone and post-lexical intonation.
Research Interests:
Contemporary language documentation workflow is a largely digital process. While this has had many benefits for how linguists undertake language documentation projects, it has also lead to a disparity between how the process is... more
Contemporary language documentation workflow is a largely digital process. While this has had many benefits for how linguists undertake language documentation projects, it has also lead to a disparity between how the process is conceptualised by academic researchers, and how it is conceptualised by the speakers of endangered languages. In this paper I discuss the nature of this disparity, and illustrate this with my own experience of working with speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages in Nepal. In my own research I have incorporated ongoing discussion regarding digital methods into my working relationships with participants, but other researchers have made digital training a specific feature of their research methodology. I discuss two projects that provide positive models for this kind of digital gap bridging. The first is the Iltyem-iltyem sign website and the second is the Aikuma language documentation phone application. After discussion of these positive developments in digital outreach I discuss some of the challenges that we still face in ensuring that what we do is engaging and relevant for the communities we work with. This discussion is not only relevant for language documentation researchers, but for all who work in the digital humanities, as we need to be more aware of the different needs and levels of digital education of different communities.