Collaboration in the Context of Teaching, Scholarship, and Language Revitalization: Experience from the Chatino Language Documentation Project

We describe our own experience of linguist-community collaboration over the last ten years in our Chatino Language Documentation Project, focused on the Chatino languages (Otomanguean; Oaxaca, Mexico). We relate episodes in the emergence and evolution of the collaboration between ourselves, and of the collaboration among ourselves and the Chatino communities with which we have worked. Our experience has several special features. First, our own collaboration began as native Chatino-speaking Ph.D. student and her teacher in a program focused on training speakers of Latin American indigenous languages in linguistics and anthropology, and developed into a larger collaboration among students and faculty where the student had a major leadership role. Second, our approach was documentary-descriptive and comparative, but it was also socially engaged or ‘activist,’, in that we sought to promote interest, awareness, and respect for the Chatino languages, to teach and support Chatino literacy, and to preserve and offer access to spoken Chatino, especially traditional verbal art. Our approach had synergies with local interests in writing and in honoring traditional speech ways, but it also led to conflicts over our roles as social actors, and the traditionally activist roles of indigenous teachers. Third, we experienced plasticity in the collaborative roles we played. Between ourselves, we were student and teacher, but also initiator and follower as we became engaged in revitalization. At the same time, the native speaker linguist found herself occupying a range of positions along a continuum from “insider” to “outsider” respect to her own community. *This paper is in the series Language Documentation in the Americas edited by Keren Rice and Bruna FranchettoNational Foreign Language Resource Cente

Finding a way into a family of tone languages: The story and methods of the Chatino Language Documentation Project

We give a narrative description of our ten-year path into the elaborate tonal systems of the Chatino languages (Otomanguean; Oaxaca, Mexico), and of some of the methods we have used and recommend, illustrated with specific examples. The work, ongoing at the time of writing, began when one of us (Cruz), a native speaker of San Juan Quiahije Chatino, entered the University of Texas at Austin as a Ph.D. student and formed, together with the other of us (Woodbury), a professor there, the Chatino Language Documentation Project, ultimately incorporating five other Ph.D. students and two other senior researchers. We argue for the importance of an interplay among speaker and non-speaker perspectives over the long course of work; a mix of introspection, hypothesis-testing, natural speech recording, transcription, translation, grammatical analysis, and dictionary-making as research methods and activities; an emphasis on community training as an active research context; the simultaneous study of many varieties within a close-knit language family to leverage progress; and the use of historical-comparative methods to get to know tonal systems and the roles they play at a deeper level. *This paper is in the series How to Study a Tone Language, edited by Steven Bird and Larry HymanNational Foreign Language Resource Cente

USALSIM: Learning, Professional Practices and Employability in a 3D Virtual World

Int. J. Technology Enhanced Learning, Vol. 5, Nos. 3/4, 2013 pp. 307-321 http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticletoc.php?jcode=ijtel&year=2013&vol=5&issue=3/4[EN] USALSIM is a project developed by the University of Salamanca as a response to the policy changes of learning and work placements in the new European Space for Higher Education, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and inscribed within an innovation programme regarding the employability of university students (CAIE059). The contribution of USALSIM is concerned with how to face the increase in the number of students who will participate in the different university work placement programmes and the increasing number of companies and institutions necessary to host and train theses students. This project uses a 3D virtual environment (a work placement simulator) that creates a virtual representation of different work environments and allows students to acquire professional skills. Representing a professional workspace such as a laboratory, for example, the student can simulate common tasks through active learning. This virtual world is focused on a constructive pedagogy, whereby students are directly involved in their formative development, establishing professional relationships, developing transversal and technical competencies, and evaluating their knowledge

USALSIM Simulador de Prácticas Externas: diseño y puesta en práctica de un Campus Virtual de Prácticas

Publicado dentro del libro "Buenas Prácticas de Empleabilidad de Estudiantes Universitarios" páginas 87-99. Editado por la Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche y financiado por el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. 2012El proyecto USALSIM nace como respuesta a los cambios producidos en prácticas externas a raíz de la nueva ordenación académica del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior, puesto que el incremento del número de estudiantes que participarán en los diferentes programas de práctica y el mayor número de empresas e instituciones necesarias para acogerles y formarles cambiarán las relaciones universidad – empresas y nos obligará a buscar nuevas vías de colaboración que faciliten la empleabilidad de los estudiantes universitarios. USALSIM es un proyecto financiado por el Ministerio de Educación en el marco del Programa de Atención Integral y Empleabilidad de los Estudiantes Universitarios y creado y desarrollado por el Servicio de Inserción Profesional Prácticas y Empleo de la Universidad de Salamanca. El presente proyecto crea un entorno virtual 3D (un simulador de prácticas) que nos permite desarrollar una realidad virtual del mundo profesional a través de diferentes puestos y situaciones cotidianas en las empresas y a través de actividades de aprendizaje activo, además de facilitar la inserción profesional del estudiante. Centrado en una pedagogía constructiva donde el estudiante se implica directamente en su desarrollo formativo, estableciendo relaciones profesionales, desarrollando competencias transversales y técnicas y autoevaluando sus conocimientos

Knowledge Discovery in Virtual Worlds Usage Data: approaching Web Mining concepts to 3D Virtual Environments

[EN] This paper examines the relationships between Web and Virtual Worlds, and how these relationships can be used to approach concepts of knowledge discovery from Web Mining to 3D environments, such as Virtual Worlds. Also it will explain how to track information of usage data for knowledge discovery and what goals can be planned for this process. Every theoretical concept will be shown with examples, including the usage options to collect, data input to the entire process, relevant information extraction from raw data, techniques to discover knowledge and several considerations to decide and represent what knowledge is useful for the user. Based on these concepts a framework is presented in which, by comparison and approach to Web Usage Mining, may be defined an entire process of Knowledge Discovery and Data Analysis

Soluciones visuales Interactivas aplicadas a grandes volúmenes de datos de entornos 3D de aprendizaje y prácticas

[ES] Este documento presenta el trabajo de investigación asociado al desarrollo de una propuesta de Visualización de Información apropiada para representar grandes cantidades de datos sobre movimientos de usuarios entre regiones de un Mundo Virtual de Aprendizaje y Prácticas y los patrones de exploración que en ellos se producen. Este trabajo abarca todas las fases que incluyen en la propuesta de visualización: desde la identificación de las fuentes de datos, la extracción y procesado de la información, la aplicación de algoritmos de Minería de Datos para extraer conocimiento de la información, hasta la propuesta final de una solución visual que represente la información y el conocimiento que encierran los datos, y el conjunto de características y mecanismos que debe incorporar dicha visualización

Quilombolas: a produção de mel na apicultura familiar do Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo

A apicultura familiar é uma atividade econômica e ecológica (devido à polinização) indispensável para sistemas de agricultura familiar que tem por finalidade trazer a inclusão social, renda fixa e bases ecológicas sustentáveis. Este trabalho teve como objetivo identificar o perfil atual da produção de mel de cinco comunidades quilombolas do Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo (Cangume, Pilões, Piririca, Porto Velho e, Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca), quanto aos aspectos sociais, ambientais e das práticas de apicultura. Os resultados sugerem que nos aspectos sociais a apicultura familiar pode ser considerada uma segunda renda, que tem ainda problemas de condições sanitárias que diferem entre as comunidades, como falta de recurso de água potável e contaminação por mineração. Com o estudo de georreferenciamento, pôde-se estabelecer as condições ambientais locais que serviram de embasamento para o levantamento florístico de 85 espécies de plantas, distribuído em 32 famílias botânicas. As análises de umidade relativa e temperatura do ar e umidade do mel indicaram que os méis tiveram uma influência das condições climáticas e dos processos adotados. Já as medidas de pH e Condutividade Elétrica sugerem uma correlação com a origem botânica dos méis. A capacitação profissional nas comunidades permitiu uma sensibilização sobre a qualidade e composição do mel

Quilombolas: a produção de mel na apicultura familiar do Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo

Family beekeeping (small-scale beekeeping) is an essential activity for economic and ecological farming systems (with its contribution to pollination), which aims to bring social inclusion, fixed income, and sustainable ecological bases. This study aimed to identify the current profile of honey production in five quilombolas communities in the São Paulo Ribeira Valley (Cangume, Pilões, Piririca, Porto Velho, and Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca), with reference to the social and environmental aspects as well as beekeeping practices. The results suggest that the social aspects of family beekeeping can be considered a second income. In these communities, however, sanitation problems, including lack of potable water resources and mining contamination, differ between communities. With the study of georeferencing, we were able to establish local environmental conditions, which served as the basis for the floristic inventory of 85 plant species distributed in 32 botanical families. The analyses of air temperature and relative humidity and honey humidity indicated that the honey was influenced by climatic conditions and the processes adopted, since the measures of pH and EC suggest a correlation with the botanical origin of honeys. Professional training in maroon communities allowed an awareness of the quality and composition of honey.A apicultura familiar é uma atividade econômica e ecológica (devido à polinização) indispensável para sistemas de agricultura familiar que tem por finalidade trazer a inclusão social, renda fixa e bases ecológicas sustentáveis. Este trabalho teve como objetivo identificar o perfil atual da produção de mel de cinco comunidades quilombolas do Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo (Cangume, Pilões, Piririca, Porto Velho e, Ribeirão Grande/Terra Seca), quanto aos aspectos sociais, ambientais e das práticas de apicultura. Os resultados sugerem que nos aspectos sociais a apicultura familiar pode ser considerada uma segunda renda, que tem ainda problemas de condições sanitárias que diferem entre as comunidades, como falta de recurso de água potável e contaminação por mineração. Com o estudo de georreferenciamento, pôde-se estabelecer as condições ambientais locais que serviram de embasamento para o levantamento florístico de 85 espécies de plantas, distribuído em 32 famílias botânicas. As análises de umidade relativa e temperatura do ar e umidade do mel indicaram que os méis tiveram uma influência das condições climáticas e dos processos adotados. Já as medidas de pH e Condutividade Elétrica sugerem uma correlação com a origem botânica dos méis. A capacitação profissional nas comunidades permitiu uma sensibilização sobre a qualidade e composição do mel

Phonology, tone and the functions of tone in San Juan Quiahije Chatino

textThe dissertation is a basic description of segmental phonology, tone, and the functions of tone in the San Juan Quiahije (SJQ) variety of Eastern Chatino. Chatino languages are spoken in the southern part of Oaxaca, Mexico. Chatino languages form a subgroup that is coordinate with the Zapotec languages in the Zapotecan family of the Otomanguean linguistic stock. The dissertation focuses on the sound system of SJQ Chatino, its system of tones, and the lexical, morphological, and syntactic functions of the tone system. SJQ Chatino is of special interest because it is a Chatino variety that has reduced nearly all historic simple stems to monosyllables, leaving behind complex consonant clusters; it has an exceptionally large tone system and complex system of tonal sandhi; the tones mark significant grammatical contrasts in addition to lexical units; and tone sandhi is significant in cuing syntactic and discourse structure. This description starts with an introduction to the language, its language family, a typological overview, a brief history of my fieldwork, and the methodology undertaken in this study. The work then describes the segmental phonology, including syllable structure and the distribution of the consonant and vowel phonemes, and the tones and tone sandhi, arguing for a system of fourteen contrastive tones at the lexical level. The work then turns to the functions of tone, including the restrictions on the lexical tone system according to the part of speech, with special emphasis on numeral words; the use of tone in marking possessor person and number in inalienably possessed nouns, and in marking aspect and subject person and number in verb; and tone in Spanish loan words. The description and analysis of these aspects of Quiahije Chatino is based on data gathered through elicitation and oral texts as well as my own intuitions as a native speaker of SJQ Chatino.Anthropolog