User-friendly functionalities to access audiovisual materials: Tsuut'ina Language Archive
Creators: name: Martín Rodríguez, Lorena
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: User-friendly functionalities
audiovisual materials
Tsuut'ina Language Archive

description: Presented by Lorena Martín Rodríguez at the Language Documentation and Archiving Conference, Berlin & Online, 4-6 Sept, 2024. 

In recent years, language archiving in the field of language documentation has undergone considerable changes in its format. The creation of digitized databases has explored some of the advantages of digital methods, such as the possibility of indexing large textual collections for user-friendly searches (Enge et al., 2015). Moreover, social changes have required us to redefine established recommended practices. Traditional boundaries and roles between the participants of documentary linguistics projects have been challenged through the empowerment of Indigenous communities in the documentation and revitalization of their languages (Henke and Berez-Kroeker, 2016), as well as in the creation of newly developed methods of participatory models and community-language research (Czaykowska-Higgins, 2009). These conditions have also impacted the design choices of language archives. Recent literature has emphasized the need of tailoring their design and functionalities for their speech communities (Wasson et al., 2016). This is especially relevant when language archives are conceived not only as a tool for language documentation, but also as a key element to support language revitalization (Perez Báez et al., 2019). This presentation introduces a web-based interface for the Tsuut’ina Language Archive, a collection of language materials in Tsuut’ina (ISO 639-3: srs, Glottocode: sars1236). This interface was prototyped along with members of Tsuut’ina Nation following user-centered design principles to tailor its materials and functionalities to the needs of the language community. This presentation focuses on the implementation of user-friendly methods of discovery and delivery tailored to audiovisual files annotated using ELAN (Brugman & Russel, 2004): full-text search and the visualization of time- aligned annotations online. Examining the collaborative design of these approaches facilitates the analysis of how digital methods in language archiving can improve accessibility to archived materials while supporting the documentation and revitalization goals of the language community. 

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