As we noted in Chapter 1, we belong to a community of linguistic researchers. Our community is quite diverse and there is no one approach that we all take to study language. Sociolinguists, however, have formulated two principles that some use to guide their work.

The first is the Principle of Linguistic Gratuity , which states that “Investigators who have obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community should actively pursue positive ways in which they can return linguistic favors to the community” (Wolfram, 1993, p. 227).

The second is the Principle of Debt Incurred, which states that “An investigator who has obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community has an obligation to make knowledge of that data available to the community, when it has need of it” (Labov, 1982, p. 173).

These are good starting points for introducing the idea of a scholar-public that could result in  stronger commitments with the people we depend on for research. However, one critique of both principles is that they position scholars as the source of knowledge and benefactors that “return favors to the community” (Wolfram, 1993, p. 227) or have an “obligation to use the [knowledge] for the benefit of the community” (Labov, 1982, p. 172). They stop short of emphasizing engaging communities as part of the research process.

We argue here that scholars have this further obligation to involve stakeholders in research, to communicate not simply their findings, but also to facilitate a general understanding of how research works as well as to share the contextualized research processes that generated their data or findings,, and, of course, to communicate with broader audiences. By showing where ideas come from and how knowledge emerges from them, sharing in the  process can arm citizens with skills to evaluate new sources of knowledge, and mitigate misinterpretation of new information..

This happens when researchers collaborate with “the public” such as in citizen science projects.

The principles of knowledge sharing

In this section we present new principles that are relevant to the sharing process of creating documentary media, knowledge-sharing essays.

Research is about sharing knowledge.

The documentary media that you create should present knowledge that was produced as a result of the research, and it should show why the target audience should know about the knowledge. While your involvement in your research may be relevant for you, it should not be the main focus of the documentary.

Knowledge came from somewhere and it is intended to go somewhere because it is important to someone.

Knowledge is not produced in a (figurative) vacuum. Research done under the umbrella of Humanities and Social Sciences, for example, is part of the enterprise to understand human behaviour. By this definition, research-derived knowledge that starts out with understanding humanity will be relevant to someone outside of the scholarly communities that produced it.

This knowledge is shareable & appealing when someone sees how it relates to them.

Knowledge is relevant to at least some part of society, and knowledge from research can be made accessible and understandable to a larger population. Scholars are just not trained to do this, but it is necessary that society is aware of the research knowledge that exists. In this way, they may be able to use this knowledge in their individual lives or in their communities. This of course begs the question about what scholarly research might be made accessible. For example, are generative theories about the structure of languages useful to non-linguists? Should linguists focus their efforts on sharing these findings? We believe so, as knowledge sharing is essential for cultural innovation.

Knowledge is not produced in isolation. It is always contextual.

Knowledge is contextual, meaning that there is a specific social context in which it emerges. Academically, the idea to pursue a particular line of research may have come about as a result of a theoretical research program, or the research priorities of a particular university or faculty. Without proper care, these can de-contextualize research. For example, the research generates data that originates with particular individuals or communities. under socio-political regimes which may not always be taken into account or understood as significant to how such data is generated.

These social contexts affect how the knowledge should be disseminated and what the target audience will be.

This context gives knowledge meaning.

For any piece of knowledge, there will be an audience, or multiple audiences, for which that knowledge is meaningful, and this meaning comes from the social context in which that knowledge came about. For example, the knowledge may be relevant to the part of the scholarly community that is devoted to the topic of the research, making it meaningful to those scholars, and if the research involves a particular community, it may also be meaningful to the people who are part of that community.

As a result, documentary media that describes knowledge derived from research should seek to present it in a way that makes clear how it is meaningful.

Knowledge-sharing seeks to reproduce the social processes related to contextualization, knowledge sharing, and meaning development.

Contextualization

Documentary media should place the knowledge in its broader social context by showing who the knowledge is relevant for or who is affected by the knowledge, and what communities, if any, were involved in producing the knowledge. Ideally, this should be done by having the relevant participants or community members explain the relevance of the knowledge in their own words. Using the speech of participants has the advantage of clearly identifying the origin of the statements in the documentary (namely, the participant who is speaking) and emphasizing the social context of the knowledge, whereas a disembodied voiceover may give a false sense of objectivity.

Knowledge sharing

The knowledge should be shared. This means that documentary media should present it in a way that is accessible to the community in question and more widely, and the documentary media should also be promoted in a way that ensures community members are aware that the documentary exists.

One way of promoting knowledge-sharing is to release documentary media under a copyright license that allows for resharing, such as a Creative Commons license (which will be discussed later in this OER). This enables viewers of the documentary to share it with others and thus expand its reach.

Meaning development

Documentary media acquires meaning for audience members when it resonates with their experiences or those of people close to them. As a result, when creating documentary media, it is important to think about who the intended audience for the documentary is and to think about what they would find meaningful.

Take the case of a documentary about a small community. Audience members who are part of or associated with that community may find the documentary meaningful as a result of their connections to that community (such as having family or friends in the community), and audience members who are not part of the community may find it meaningful if the narrative presented resonates with their own experiences and connections with different small communities in similar situations.

Summary

The purpose of research can be summarized in the following principles:

1. Your research is not about you. It is about sharing knowledge.
2. Knowledge came from somewhere and it is intended to go somewhere because it is important to someone.
3. This knowledge is shareable & appealing when someone sees how it relates to them.
4. Knowledge is not produced in isolation. It is always contextual.
5. This context gives knowledge meaning.
6. Knowledge-based Documentary Media seeks to reproduce the social processes related to contextualization, knowledge sharing, and meaning development.

Sources

Anderson, D., Atkins, A., Ball, C., Millar, K. H., Selfe, C., & Selfe, R. (2006). Integrating multimodality into composition curricula: Survey methodology and results from a CCCC research grant. Composition Studies, 34(2), 59-84.

Labov, W. (1982). Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: The case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor. Language in society, 11(2), 165-201.

Wolfram, W. (1993). “Ethical Considerations in Language Awareness Programs.” Issues in Applied Linguistics, 4(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/L442030813 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4935z108