Narrative art: multimodal documentation of speech, song, sign, drawing and gesture in Arandic storytelling traditions from Central Australia

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.

In Central Australia the expressive potentials of verbal and visual art forms are combined in multimodal narratives that incorporate speech, song, sign language, gesture and drawing. These stories are a highly valued yet endangered part of the traditions of Central Australian peoples. This project will take a multimodal and multidisciplinary approach to the documentation of stories from the Arandic language group – a group of closely related languages spoken by about 5,500 people. It will provide a significant record of these narrative practices and provide rich data sets for analyses that will enhance our understandings of how multimodal communicative systems work. Primary investigator: Jenny Green

Project Details


Location: Australia, Australia and New Zealand, Oceania Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): University of Melbourne Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £69,159.00 Commencement Date: 01/2007
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