Doing Real Linguistics part 1: Hardware

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Doing Real Linguisticspart 1 Hardware

• Rafael Fischer, PhD-candidate

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Workshop on field linguistics

• 4 May 2007
• 0900-1100 Hardware Rafael Fischer
  (Ecuador/Colombia) r.w.fischer_at_uva.nl
• 1500-1700 Software Sebastian Nordhoff
  (Sri-Lanka) s.nordhoff_at_uva.nl
• 11 May 2007
• 0900-1100 Working with consultants Hugo
  Cardoso (India) h.c.cardoso_at_uva.nl
• But also less exotic places and other type of
  research
• Better recording conditions
• Better infrastructure
• Different working scheme

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Real linguists vs. arm-chair linguists
Dixon, R.M.W. 1997. The rise and fall of
languages. Cambridge University Press. 110 ATW
XIV DIX 1
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Why ?

• Describing languages is the only way to learn
  linguistics properly one must serve an
  appropriate apprenticeship to master an art or
  profession.
• Armchair typologists ... have never worked
  intensively on a language. Lacking the necessary
  apprenticeship, they dont have the appropriate
  understanding of how languages work or the
  ability to distinguish between reliable and
  unreliable grammars. They consult grammars, and
  make an essay at typological generalizations but
  their results are frequently naive and
  unenlightening.
• If every linguistic student (and faculty member)
  in the world today worked on just one language
  that is need of study, the prospects for full
  documentation of endangered languages wood be
  rosy.
• Dixon (1997136-137)

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From SSILA Bulletin 236 April 10, 2006
A word addressed to junior colleagues who think
that it will improve their work to immerse it in
the latest electronic technology. Don't. Because
it won't. I worked on the Jarawara grammar as I
did on previous grammars of Dyirbal, of Yidi, of
Boumaa Fijian (and of English). I used pencil,
pen and spiral-bound notebooks, plus a couple of
goodquality tape recorders. No video camera (to
have employed one would have compromised my role
in the community). No lap-top. No Shoebox or
anything of that nature. And also no grammatical
elicitation from the lingua franca. Work centred
on the recording and analysis of texts, and on
studying language use in an immersion fieldwork
situation. Every ounce of my time and energy and
brain-power went into writing down, and copying
out, and learning, and analysing the language.
A word addressed to junior colleagues who think
that it will improve their work to immerse it in
the latest electronic technology. Don't. Because
it won't. I worked on the Jarawara grammar as I
did on previous grammars of Dyirbal, of Yidi, of
Boumaa Fijian (and of English). I used pencil,
pen and spiral-bound notebooks, plus a couple of
goodquality tape recorders. No video camera (to
have employed one would have compromised my role
in the community). No lap-top. No Shoebox or
anything of that nature. And also no grammatical
elicitation from the lingua franca. Work centred
on the recording and analysis of texts, and on
studying language use in an immersion fieldwork
situation. Every ounce of my time and energy and
brain-power went into writing down, and copying
out, and learning, and analysing the language.
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Thank you for coming!
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Steps in language documentation

• Audio and video recordings
• Uploading and conversion to archiving and working
  formats (.wav, .mpeg, mpeg2, .avi etc.)
• Transcription (Transcriber)
• Translation and analysis (Toolbox, Praat)
• Media, transcriptions and other information
  aligned in Elan.
• Meta-information (Imdi-browser)

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Hardware requirements

• Recording
• Audio and video recorder
• w. extra batteries and external chargers
• Wide-angle lens, lens protection and cloth
• Tripod
• Unidirectional microphones (camera mount / table
  microphone and clip-on / head-mount), plug-in
  power
• Headphones (1 good, several cheap ones)
• Photo camera
• Cleaning tape
• Processing
• Powerful (laptop) computer
• External hard disc
• USB-mixer

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Hardware requirements

• Storage
• Plenty of recording media (video cassettes,
  mini-disc, DVD-r, CD-r, flash cards, etc.)
• Water, dust and shock proof casing and small
  camera-bag
• Silica gel
• Power
• Power source (solar panel, generator, etc.)
• Batteries (AA, extra batteries for recording
  devices)
• External recharge
• Volt regulator
• Gasoline
• Extras
• Extra plugs and cables
• Paper and pencil
• Plastic bags

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Approx. min. cost
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Audio or video ?

• Audio only
• Elicitation
• Easy to process
• Portable
• Less intrusive or less obvious (014-0.trs)
• Cheap
• User friendly
• Audio and video
• Gestures
• Documentation of culture
• High quality audio (cf. 002 and V107)

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Recording audio

• Depends on aim of research
• What we can hear
• Humans can generally hear sounds with frequencies
  between 20 Hz - 20 kHz, but varies with age,
  hearing damage, and gender
• human speech 200 - 8,000 Hz, human ear most
  sensitive to frequencies around 800-2000 Hz.
• What we can/want to measure phonetic analysis
  vs. morpho-syntax
• What a recorder can capture

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Compression

• Sampling rate The number of measurements per
  second, called the sampling rate, is measured in
  kHz (number of measure moments / samples per
  second).
• The more measure moments / samples the better the
  sound quality, but also the larger the amount of
  information
• Thus compression reduces the number of kb/s but
  also the number of samples

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Recording audio

• Compression reduces storage space, but results
  in loss of quality
• uncompressed CD quality 1411 kb/s
• 44,100 samples/second 16 bits/sample 2
  channels 1,411,200 bits per second
• MP3 CBR 32-320 kb/s
• ATRAC3plus CBR 48-352 kb/s
• AAC variable rate

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Audio recording devices

• Cassette as moribund as many languages, cheap,
  available in most places, analogue.
• Computer Uncompressed, but interference of
  moving parts (alternatively USB interface),
  processing not constant (freezing), microphone
  entrance on most laptops are of poor quality and
  record mono, but cheap and digital recording (no
  uploading).
• Digital dictaphone 260-6800 Hz, 8 kb/s, cheap,
  digital
• MP3 recorders compressed, varying quality,
  digital light, big storage, cheap
• MiniDisc / HiMD compressed, analogue or loss of
  recording during upload (music industry security
  lock), external back-up, 74 min (MD)-13 hours
  (HiMD up to 1GB).
• DAT uncompressed, high quality recorders,
  external back-up, but tracking problems when
  switching between two recorders, expensive,
  mechanical (rewinding), and not available
  everywhere.

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Audio recording devices

• CD-recorder uncompressed, high quality
  recorders, external back-up, available
  everywhere, and power consuming.
• Flash recorder compressed and uncompressed,
  digital, extra flash memory, no conversion, no
  moving parts, fast uploading, but flash cards are
  expensive.
• Video camera uncompressed, high quality
  recording, but uploading and extraction needed,
  external back-up.

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Microphones

• Uni-directional vs. omni-directional

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Microphones

• Dynamic microphones takes advantage of
  electromagnet effects. When a magnet moves past a
  wire (or coil of wire), the magnet induces
  current to flow in the wire. In a dynamic
  microphone, the diaphragm moves either a magnet
  or a coil when sound waves hit the diaphragm, and
  the movement creates a small current.
• less noise
• weak signal
• need pre-amplifier (present in few portable
  devices)
• suitable for less portable devices

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Microphones

• Condenser microphones use voltage to pass
  signal on to the recording device.
• voltage is provided by recording device, or
• by a battery
• more noise
• suitable for most portable devices and computers

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Microphones

• Plugs
• Good brands Sennheiser, Sony, Samson (good
  Head-mount for 140,-)
• Do not use extensions, but long cable is allowed

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Audio recording

• Always use an external mic moving parts,
  low-quality built-in microphones, closer to
  speaker
• Turn the mic on !!! (and off again), replace it
  batteries regularly
• Clipping vs. normalizing
• Rec level automatic vs. manual recording
• Mic sensitivity (high vs. low)
• Best high sensitivity and low rec level
• Try-out on beforehand different settings
  recorder and microphone, different places
• Place microphone as close as you can (avoid
  placing in airflow of speaker), pref. 30-50 cm.
• When possible use a head-mount or clip-on

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Audio recording

• Quiet setting mind the, chicken (V107), neighbor
  music (V010), children (003), generator (023),
  etc.
• Recording outdoors try to find a quiet (002) and
  shielded place out of the wind (004) (use
  windshield).
• Hang mic or place it on a cloth, or stick, never
  hold it directly (002)
• Microphone should not make direct contact with
  table, floor (V107) etc.
• Arrive early and do a try-out recording and use
  your headphones (001)
• When using removable media one tape per session

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Video recordings

• Rule of thumb you dont need fancy stuff !
• Cameras
• VHS camera
• Hi 8 analogue, cheap,
• out of production (camera and tapes).
• Digital 8 cheap, out of production (camera and
  tapes).

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Video recordings

• MiniDV compact cassettes (extra back-up) are
  sold everywhere, increasingly cheaper, 60 min.
  (SP) to 90 min. (LP), 500 lines of resolution,
  easily transferred to PC, camera is lightweight
  and compact, still pictures (low quality),
  relatively economic power-usage, might be
  replaced in due time.
• MicroMV same as MiniDV but with smaller tapes
  which are more expensive, record less (approx. 30
  min.), and are hard to come by in some countries.
• DVD-recorders record directly on a DVD (cheap),
  no need to upload recording, but energy
  consuming, usually does not make linear audio
  recordings and also the video is mostly direct in
  MPEG format.
• HD / Flash recorders record directly onto HD /
  memory, no need to upload recording, cheap (no
  need for media), no back-up, no PCM recording
  (Dolby recording), most models have no external
  microphone connection, fragile.

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Video recording device

• Requirements microphone in, digital out, video
  out, compatibility with computer
• Manual vs. automatic Rec level
• Do not record in compressed format (DVD and HD
  cameras)
• PAL vs. NTSC only important for playback on TVs
  and upon making video DVDs or CDs
• Most important part of recording is still the
  audio

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Recording video

• Language documentation is not documentary making
• As with audio try your camera out and use a
  headphone
• Always use external microphone internal
  microphone is omni-directional, moving parts
  interfere, too far away from the speaker.

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Recording video

• Put camera down no distraction, at least pretend
  to be listening
• The audio recording will be set to 48 kHz, 16Bit.
  
• Use one tape per session, SP mode
• Do not turn camera on too late, nor too early off
• When possible use a tripod or both arms,
  otherwise Steady shot (V002)
• No digital zoom

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Recording video

• Make sure that there is a constant video signal
  recorded on the tape. Do not produce any gaps
  between the different scenes. A new scene should
  start directly at the end of the previous one.
  This can be achieved with the help of the END
  SEARCH button
• Preferably do not rewind during session
  time-codes might reset
• Avoid making recordings when the background is
  too bright. Try to film with the sunlight.
• see for more tips www.utexas.edu/web/video/prod.p
  hp?e

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Recording video

• Do not take pictures and store them onto the
  tape, use the extra Memory card instead.
• Indoor filming may only be possible with an extra
  wide angle lens to cover the whole scene.
• Do not expose the equipment to the sunlight for
  too long.
• Train informants to do recordings

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Recording video

• Capture body this much
• V104
• Akhia nane va'yichoa, jongoesu dañongechokho'o
• just really this.much some weirdo
• Really just this much, like some weirdo
• V107
• Tsonsi athepa pushesundekhu vayi'kho sefa'ye
  ande'faya
• then look women this.much from.sky
  came.down
• Then having looked, this much (three) women come
  down from the sky

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Recording video

• PAL vs. NTSC only important for playback on TVs
• Write the tape label ID and other relevant
  information on a sheet of white paper and record
  it, also read the label ID aloud for audio
  recognition. This is helpful for later
  identification. Label the media directly after
  every recording.
• After every recording check the tape immediately.
  In case of problems run the cleaning tape.
• Protect tape after recording
• Store the recorded tapes in a dry, cool place and
  set the record save tab to prevent further rec.

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Requirements for video camera
Sony HDR-SR8E, approx 1400,- euro.
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Laptop computer

• (Depends) on situation
• Requires
• Good processor
• Working memory is less important
• Most work being done by sound and video card
• Big hard drive 300 MB / 1 min. video or 12 GB /
  1 hr.
• Reserve free partition or use external drive
• Firewire connection check 4 and 6 pins
• DVD-burner back-up, keep computer clean, make
  great presents
• External drive more storage, spare internal
  drive, fast.

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Laptop computer

• Operating system
• Mac OS good video capture, basic models are
  cheap, basic video editing (but additional
  software expensive), stable, can run Windows and
  Linux on Mac as well, no virus threats, less
  support abroad.
• Windows good video capture, basic models are
  cheap, basic video editing, most software is made
  at least for Windows (Toolbox only Windows), can
  run Linux on Windows computer as well, ample
  support, virus threats
• Linux might experience problems with video and
  sound cards, stable, free, need expertise, no
  support

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Storage and handling

• Worst enemies water of condensation, insects,
  heat, etc.
• Equipment is replaceable, recordings are not.
• Avoiding condensation in the tropics keep stored
  as much as possible
• Avoiding condensation in Siberia
• Its OK to go from a warm to a cold place
• From cold to warm, go in steps
• Use silica gel, or rice
• Dry silica gel regularly in oven or in open sun.
• Ask your local photography shop for free
• Invest in a good case waterproof, shockproof,
  children proof
• A small carrying bag for day trips