OLAC Linguistic Field Vocabulary

This document specifies the codes, or controlled vocabulary, for the 'linguistic-field' value of the xsi:type attribute of the OLAC Subject element. These codes describe the content of a resource as relevant to a particular subfield of linguistic science.

Anthropological linguistics often concerns less well-documented languages. The definition includes 'ethnolinguistics.'

The SIL Ethnologue, which collects data on the number on speakers of a language and the geographical region in which it is spoken.

The definition includes TESOL, ESL, Second Language Teaching, Second Language Learning and Contrastive Linguistics.

Teaching materials, guides for language teachers, and studies of adult language learning.

A paper on iconicity.

The definition includes Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, and Mathematical Linguistics.

Books and papers dealing with Machine Translation, Text to Speech software, and algorithms to parse sentences.

The definition includes Humor Studies, Conversation Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, and studies of language use in special circumstances, e.g. Courtroom Language.

Transcripts of discourse, perhaps with turn taking and speaker overlap highlighted; papers on Discourse Representation Theory or on different talk types such as doctor/patient interaction; and audio and video tapes of interactive discourse which might serve as an object of study.

Resources that cover many subfields in depth, perhaps a dissertation on an endangered language with a detailed syntactic and phonological analysis, should be classified under all the relevant subfields instead of 'General Linguistics'.

Broad, often introductory textbooks such as The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language (Crystal, 1987), and glossaries of linguistic terminology.

The definition includes Etymology.

Papers on phonological shifts and data exemplifying such shifts.

A biography of Ferdinand de Saussure, or an analysis of Plato's discussions on language.

Usually, the major purpose of resources classified as Language Description is to provide information on language structure, rather than to critique or support a specific linguistic theory. However, if a descriptive drammar or analysis has a particular theoretical bent it may also be classified under Linguistic Theory.

A grammar, a PhD dissertation on an endangered language, a collection of field notes and recordings.

Swadesh word lists, a reverse dictionary of English, and a collection of legal terms in a particular language.

The definition includes Stylistics and Poetics.

An analysis of lexical patterns characteristic of a particular author or syntactic constructions used to create specific literary effects.

Papers arguing for or against Universal Grammar, Transformational Grammar, or Montague Grammar.

A resource consisting primarily of data from a morphologically complex language should be classifed as 'Language Description' if the primary purpose is to describe the structure of the language in question.

A paper on morphological theory, Word Grammar (Hudson).

A study of brain damage with respect to language impairment, a study of the neurological development of the brain during first language acquisition.

A paper on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, a comparative study of verbal and non-verbal thought.

The definition includes both articulatory phonetics and acoustic phonetics. Datasets, lexicons, and graphic representations of experimental results should be classified under Phonetics if they have particular relevance to the sounds of the language.

A sound inventory of a language, a study of the variation of articulation of a particular sound.

The classification is not limited to phonological analyses. Datasets, lexicons, and graphic representations of experimental results should be classified under Phonology if they have particular relevance to the sound system of the language.

Phonological theories applied to a particular language; that is, a study of the syllable structure of a language, or the rules behind sound alternations. Also to be included under 'Phonology' are phoneme datasets, field notes on the phonology of a language, and papers on phonological theories themselves, such as a critique of Optimality Theory.

The definition includes Non-verbal Communication.

A study of politeness phenomena, honorifics, deixis or speech acts.

A cross-linguistic study of acquisition of a particular syntactic constraint, a study of aphasic children's language development.

The study of meaning in conversation should be classified as 'Discourse Analysis' and not 'Semantics'. The Linguistic Field of 'Semantics' includes meaning at the word level ('lexical semantics').

A paper on semantic theory, such as Truth Conditional Semantics. A paper on color lexemes in a particular language.

Multilingualism, Folklore, Pidgins and Creoles, Dialectology, Language Planning, and Gender Studies should all be classified under 'Sociolinguistics'.

A study of language variation according to such factors as the speakers' gender, age, and/or social class.

A syntactic description of a language, using a particular syntactic theory. A paper using language data to criticize a syntactic theory.

The definition includes Semiotics and Genre Analysis. The text itself should be classified under 'Text and Corpus Linguistics,' as well as any analyses of the text.

The British National Corpus. A statistical analysis of the British National Corpus, on the use of modal verbs in spoken and written English.

The definition includes 'Terminology' and 'Transliteration'. The translated text itself may be better classified under 'Language Description' if the purpose of the translation is to exemplify the structure of a language.

A study of the relative merits of different levels of translation (that is, literal translation, word-for-word translation and so on).

The definition includes the descriptive and comparative study of Universals.

A paper using data from multiple languages as an argument for or against Universal Grammar. An analysis of a poorly documented language in terms of Greenberg's Universals.

Resources dealing with literacy may be classified as Writing Systems or Applied Linguistics or both, depending on whether the resource has substantial pedagogic content (Applied Linguistics) or includes an analysis of the graphemic system per se (Writing Systems).

A paper examining issues in a linguist's development of a writing system for a previously unwritten language. An examination of pictographic writing systems.