The Importance of Agent Paradigms in Role Usage
Abstract
The pioneering work (Bird and Simons 2001; Huang 2002; Hughes 2004; Johnson 2002) which resulted in the OLAC Role Vocabulary (OLAC-RV) has been under-discussed since its promotion to candidate status (Johnson 2006). However, OLAC roles are considered important for language archives as well as citation and referencing practices (Andreassen et al. 2019). Roles as part of the complete metadata record play a part not only in acknowledging the intellectual merit and contribution of contributors but also the character, type, and nature of the resource. For example, “speaker” may be an OLAC role which is used to indicate a language proficient voice in a resource, but “interviewee” may actually more accurately characterize the resource, not just the contributor.
Two important aspects of the OLAC-RV deserve attention: first, the interdependent nature of the OLAC-RV and the MARC relator roles vocabulary (LOC 2024) and, second, the unfinished nature of the OLAC-RV where its authors state: “To do: Elicit roles from language researchers other than documentary linguists.” By addressing agent paradigms this paper lays a foundation for principled continuous development of OLAC-RV.
The OLAC-RV usefully presents 24 roles, but provides no guidance when these roles should be co-used with other roles. We rely on the undocumented but implicit paradigm invoked by a role. We further suggest that the documentation of these paradigms are paramount for clear and consistent application of roles across stewardship organizations. The documentation of language-resource agent/creation-paradigms is also important for successful communication with “non-documentary linguists” for the efficient elicitation of roles. Finally, since the OLAC-RV is interdependently built upon the MARC relator role vocabulary, it is important to understand the paradigms present in both vocabularies. We present 10 paradigms based on roles in the OLAC-RV so that conversations with “other language researchers” can commence.
References
- Andreassen, Berez-Kroeker, Collister, Conzett, Cox, Smedt, McDonnell, Cieri, Coretta, De Smedt, Ferrara, Forkel, Smythe Kung, Lischinsky, Nordhoff, Paterson III, Ring, Thieberger & Winters (2019)
- Andreassen, H., Berez-Kroeker, A., Collister, L., Conzett, P., Cox, C., Smedt, K., McDonnell, B., Cieri, C., Coretta, S., De Smedt, K., Ferrara, L., Forkel, R., Smythe Kung, S., Lischinsky, A., Nordhoff, S., Paterson III, H., Ring, H., Thieberger, N. & Winters, M. (2019). Tromsø recommendations for citation of research data in linguistics. Research Data Alliance Linguistic Data Interest Group. https://doi.org/10.15497/RDA00040
- Bird & Simons (2001)
- Bird, S. & Simons, G. (2001). The OLAC metadata set and controlled vocabularies. In DeClerck, T., Krauwer, S. & Rosner, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of ACL/EACL Workshop on Sharing Tools and Resources for Research and Education. (pp. 7–18). EACL-ACL; elsnet. Retrieved from https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W01-1506
- Huang (n.d.)
- Huang, C. (n.d.). Suggestion for adding a Proofreader role. Retrieved from https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/olac-implementers/2002-November/000209.html
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- Hughes, B. (n.d.). OLAC Metadata. Retrieved from https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/olac-implementers/2004-June/000245.html
- Johnson (2002)
- Johnson, H. (2002). OLAC Role Vocabulary. Retrieved from https://slideplayer.com/slide/717312/
- Johnson (2006)
- Johnson, H. (2006). OLAC Role Vocabulary. Open Language Archive Community. Retrieved from http://www.language-archives.org/REC/role.html
- (2024)
- (2024). Relator Code and Term List – Term Sequence: MARC 21 Source Codes. Library of Congress. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/relaterm.html
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Hugh Paterson III
Collaborative Scholar
I specialize in bespoke research at the intersection of Linguistics, Law, Languages, and Technology; specifically utility and life-cycle management for information products in these spaces.