Best Practices for Speech Corpora in Linguistic Research Workshop ...

switching and code mixing, we have included an additional
annotation layer for language alternation, annotated with
the tag Wechsel. In addition, the translation of the passage
is given in the comment tier of the particular speaker (cf.
fig. 1).
Figure 1: The annotation layer for language alternation in
the GeWiss corpus
6. The Work Flow of the GeWiss Corpus
Construction
Creating a well designed corpus, and in particular one
comprising (recorded and transcribed) spoken data, is a
labour- and cost-intensive project. For the specification of
the corpus design it requires clear ideas about the kind of
research questions that it might help to answer as well as
about the kind of applications it may be used for. In order to
build a consistent corpus in a given time-limit and to keep
track of the different tasks involved it also needs a straight
workflow.
The workflow of data gathering and preparation in the
GeWiss project includes five complex subsequent steps, all
coordinated by a human corpus manager:
1. Data acquisition and recording – including the
enquiry of recording opportunities, the recruitment of
participants, the request for written consent, and
finally the recording itself, conducted by research
assistants who were also present as participant
observers in the speech events in order to identify
speakers and collect metadata;
2. Data preparation – including the transferring of the
recordings to the server, the editing and masking, the
assignment of alias and the masking of the additional
materials associated with the recording;
3. Entering the metadata into the EXMARaLDA Corpus
Manager – including the linking of the masked
recordings and additional materials to the speech
event;
4. Transcription – including a three-stage correction
phase carried out by the transcriber him-/herself and
two other transcribers of the project;
5. Final processing of the transcript – including the
additional masking of the recording (if needed), the
check for segmentation errors, the export of a
segmented transcription and finally the linking of the
transcription to the speech event in the corpus
manager.
10
At present, the final check and the segmentation of the
GeWiss transcriptions are in progress and the digital
processing of the transcribed data has started. After that,
the sub-corpora will be built up and an interface for the
online access will be implemented. Through this web
interface the GeWiss corpus will be publicly available for
research and pedagogical purposes after free registration.
The release of the first version of GeWiss is planned by
autumn 2012.
7. Conclusion
We have described the creation process of a comparable
corpus of spoken academic language data produced by
native and non-native speakers recorded in three different
academic contexts, i.e. the German, English and Polish
context. We presented the parameters for the design of the
GeWiss corpus, the types of metadata collected, the
transcription conventions applied and the workflow from
data gathering to corpus publication. The GeWiss corpus
will be the first publicly available corpus of spoken
academic German. Its specific design offers a valuable
database for comparative investigations of various kinds.
The successful completion of the phase of data acquisition
and transcription is an important prerequisite for the
creation of a valuable corpus of spoken data for linguistic
purposes. The associated expenditure of time, however,
shouldn’t be underestimated in the planning stage of such
corpora.
8. References
Fandrych, C. ; Meißner, C. and Slavcheva, A. (in print).
The GeWiss Corpus: Comparing Spoken Academic
German, English and Polish. In T. Schmidt & K.
Wörner (Eds), Multilingual corpora and multilingual
corpus analysis. Amsterdam: Benjamins. (= Hamburg
Studies in Multilingualism).
Guckelsberger, S. (2005). Mündliche Referate in
universitären Lehrveranstaltungen Diskursanalytische
Untersuchungen im Hinblick auf eine wissenschafts-
bezogene Qualifizierung von Studierenden. München:
Iudicum.
Koch, P. ; Österreicher, W. (2008). Mündlichkeit und
Schriftlichkeit von Texten. In N. Janich (Ed.)
Textlinguistik. Tübingen: Narr, pp.199--215.
Jasny, S. (2001). Trennbare Verben in der gesprochenen
Wissenschaftssprache und die Konsequenzen für ihre
Behandlung im Unterricht für Deutsch als fremde
Wissenschaftssprache. Regensburg: FaDaF. [=
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Lange, D. ; Rogozi�ska, M. ; Jaworska S. ; Slavcheva, A.
(in prep). GAT2 als Transkriptionskonvention für
multilinguale Sprachdaten? Zur Adaption des
Notationssystems im Rahmen des Projekts GeWiss. In
C. Fandrych, C. Meißner & A. Slavcheva (Eds.),
Tagungsband der GeWiss-Konferenz vom 27. - 29. 10.
2011. Heidelberg: Synchronverlag. (= Reihe
Wissenschaftskommunikation).
Mauranen, A. ; Ranta, E. (2008). English as an Academic