RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Informatics an geo-linguistic research: ALS: micro-areal atlases and data base fruition

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di MESSINA - SCIENZE COGNITIVE E DELLA FORMAZIONE - MESSINA(ME)

Research Unit Leader

Antonino PENNISI

Description

Introduction
In the general scheme of the tematics concerning the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily, the research group intends to realize a complete informatic standardization of the phonetic, iconic and photographic data.
The project involves a type of theoretical work and a type of empiric work.
We want to describe and realize the informatization:

a) of the proceding of the phonetics translation of the linguistic data;
b) of their codification in specific format, that will be able to realize a cartographical projection;
c) of the trasformation of these acustic sequences, we can find in the lexical or in the phrasal issues, into statistical representative maps;
d) of the input-output of the iconic and photographic data, concerning the etnographical section of the Linguistic Atlas of Sicily

To make these tasks the research group must develop theorical competences relating to natural languages, to semiotics, to language philosophy and to linguistic.
Moreover the competences of the informatic engeneering and tested experiences in the automatic treatment of the phonetical and iconic data and in the cartographical representation are necessary requirements.
In relation to this last point particular capabilities to program througt informatic languages, adeguate configurating interactive sociolinguistic maps, are request.
Menaging and compiling this software request the union of knowleges concerning not only informatics, but also theoric variational linguistics, macrosociolinguistics, and philosophy of language. This for two reasons: to optimize the selection process of quantitative informations for one hand, to produce maps as near as possible to the chosen rappresentative model of changes concerned to a particular linguistic aspect, for other hand.

Description of the work.

The work, developing in a period of 24 months, will be organized by a mixed working-group from universities of Messina to consist in teachers of linguistics and informatics. For the years 2000-2004 this working-groups have constituted the pilot centres that have been operating in the field of the application of multimedia computer science to typical contents of the geo- and socio-linguistics.

It will consist of:

(7) An exhaustive census of the interviews fort the years 2000-2004 (PRIN) make in the eastern Sicily (territory of Messina, Catania, Siracusa, Ragusa);

(8) The recognition and completion of those current sources of collection of linguistic varieties, which already have been completed but not yet digitalised, and their capitalization.

(9) Meetings, cultural exchanges, training, and seminars in order to realize a platform and methodology of common scientific research on the standardization and on technological innovation for the planning, for searching and for multimedia representation of geolinguistic data.

(10) The ultimate of prototype software for the representation of diatopic (goegraphic) and diastratic (social) data, with bi- and tri-dimensional projections of those data onto maps, using friendly interfaces to access the sound dimension (by means of an interactive link to sound resources to listen to original utterances), and to access audio visual data (by means of an interactive link to filmed and other resources of the prosodic and body language dimension of ethnolonguistic data).

(11) The testing and the demonstration of the multimedia products realized within the working-group.

(12) The publication of the results obtained in the ALS, including an analysis about the future prospects for the permanent preservation of the linguistic-cultural patrimony of the Sicily, for the technical innovation of its formats of representation, and for the definition of a common protocol of network distribution.