This week we started the session going over some common mistakes and mishaps from our homework. After Anne and Michael pointed out the mistakes we got some time to correct our codes so we could move on to the next tasks with a perfect code.
Then we learned how to code a song. This is special because the songs are displayed in two columns: one for the Likpakpaln transcript and one for the English translation. In order to do that we need to create a table in the code. This is the code we were taught to use:
<row> <cell><l>Maadim ee, bi koo’ pak Maadim ee too. (2x)</l></cell>
<cell><l>Maadim, all are full of praise for Maadim. (2x)</l></cell> </row>
</table>
</div>
In order for the lines of the song to be more legible we place an empty row between the lines.
We were also taught how to code footnotes and a glossary. Both codes work in a similar way where there needs to be a connection between the footnote or the word in the text and the corresponding number or explanation in the notes/glossary.
<head type=”subTitle”>A Glossary of Likpakpaln Words</head>
<list type=”gloss”>
<label>Asantes:</label><item><gloss xml:id=”gloss1″>plural form of Asante.
The Asante people, who are commonly known as Ashanti people or Ashantis, are one of the ethnic groups in Ghana that make up the Akan group. They inhabit the southern part of Ghana, especially the Ashanti region.</gloss></item>
</list>
</div>
Finally, we were placed into groups of two for our group project.
In our 4th session, May 4th, first we did a recap of the previous session, elaborating on the header, followed by a quick exercise finding possible errors in the examples
Then, we reviewed basic elements of coding:
text divisions <division>
title and subtitle <head>
paragraphs <p>
quotes/spoken word <q>
Then we focused on the header as an important part of codes.
A header includesMetadata and has the following mandatory elements:
In our second session (April 27th), we were introduced to TEI and XML. First, we learned that TEI is an acronym for Text Encoding Initiative, which is used to create data from scratch, store data and transform data in machine/computer-readable formats. The type of information stored is varied: not only texts but also audios, pictures, and videos can be stored in digital form. XML is an acronym for Extensive Markup Language, a descriptive computer language that uses symbols to create a clear structure in a text document. TEI and XML are essential tools because they allow information, in our case Konkomba folktales, to be easily accessible for those interested in the stored data while simultaneously preserving it so it will not be lost in the future.
Next, we were shown how a TEI file is structured. A TEI file always contains a header and a text also referred to as a body. There are also main containers and sub-containers (short: sc) which contain elements. Their purpose is to define the Markup Language. For example, when coding we use an Open Tag (<), then we insert the elements/sc, and then use a CloseTag (>). We have to keep in mind that Tags are a very integral part of Markup Language. Without Tags a TEI file cannot be properly formed, resulting in an error. At the beginning of every TEI file, we need to type <TEI…> before we begin with the header and the text/body. Only when we are completely finished with creating a TEI file, we can type </TEI>. This is the first step.
The second step is to create a header. The header needs to be tagged as <teiHeader>. There, the main container is situated. It contains metadata, like the author, storyteller, publication information, editors, sponsors, etc. This is mandatory information that is typed as follows: <fileDesc>… </file Desc> (file Description), <titleStmt>…</titleStmt> (title statement), <publicationStmt>…</publicationStmt> (publication statement), and <sourceDesc>…</sourceDesc (source description). When all the mandatory information is in the TEI file, we use </fileDesc>. There are also optional elements, like <encodingDesc> (encoding description) which details editorial decisions or the relationship between a text and the source from which it was derived. When the header is completed, we use </teiHeader>.
We were shown an example of how the header is structured:
After that, the text is tagged as <text>. The text contains the body (tagged as <body>… </body>). First, we need to put the title or subtitle: This is done by putting <head>… </head>. To markup sections within a text, we need to use <div>… </div>. To create paragraphs, <p>…</p> is used. Finally, to encode line breaks or quotations we use <l>…</l> and <q>…</q>. When we are finished with the body, </body> needs to be put at the end. To finish the text section, we type </text>.
This was another example shown to us of how to successfully create a text/body section:
To conclude, I think the introductory lesson about TEI and XML has been easy to follow and was explained in a way that wasn’t too complicated. At first, I was a bit nervous about learning how to code because I don’t have a lot of experience with coding but after this session, I am interested to learn more about TEI and how we are going to implement coding in our future sessions of the seminar.
Digitalising folk tales from cultures and areas deeply rooted in oral traditions and orality helps archive these tales, as well as the languages and cultures they derive from, and thereby gives them the opportunity to transcend time and space to reach more people. One might of course ask whether translating folk tales from their original marginalised language into an institutional, widely spoken language such as English means domesticating this language and therefore ultimately contributing to that language’s endangerment. However, as we have also concluded in class this winter term, if the translator uses the method of foreignization for their translation, meaning that they give visibility to the original language and culture (cf. Venuti), it can also help an endangered language be preserved. Translating and showcasing the Konkomba language is rather a case of preserving and archiving the existence of the language and culture, because it is in danger of going extinct in the near future. Therefore, translating (with the method of foreignization) and subtitling the Konkomba folk tales in English gives visibility to the language and culture, because by hearing the folk tales in their original language and following along with the English subtitles helps a non-Konkomba listener become familiar with the language as well as the culture.
The folk tale
A folk tale is a tool of language and culture documentation, transmission, and preservation. In a traditional sense, folk tales are oral stories that are passed on from generation to generation, but it became more common for them to also be written down over the years (cf. Thompson 4). However, there are cultures and areas around the world where orality and oral folk tales dominate and hence these stories do not necessarily exist in a written form.
A folk tale is region-specific and always expresses, communicates, and transmits beliefs, values, a morale, or myths among other things of its culture of origin. It is mostly quite short and changes are predetermined with each re-telling because of its oral nature (cf. Pullum 96). The folk tale, its language and culture are sources of indigenous knowledge about a people’s history, cultural heritage and belief system and are hence deeply interwoven with each other – as explained by our course instructor Tasun Tidorchibe.
The Konkomba folk tale “A Cat Saves an Old Lady from a Troublesome Wolf”, gives insight into the reason why most old ladies are fond of cats, with its roots deriving from Konkomba mythology. The folk tale is about an old lady – an upininkpil – and how a wolf always steals the food she is making. Whenever the old lady makes yam and pounds fufu (a type of mash) she sings a song. Hearing the song, the wolf approaches, thereby answering upininkpil’s song with one of its own. This causes the old lady to run away in fear. Because the wolf always comes when she is making food, she has tried to seek protection from other animals, but without success. However, one day a cat visits the old lady and offers to capture the wolf for her. The cat tells her to do everything as usual and the old lady agrees. The wolf comes, starts singing its song and enters the old lady’s house. But at that moment the cat jumps on the wolf and kills it, saving the old lady from her predicament. The cat chose to save the old lady instead of a fellow animal. This is believed to be the reason why many upininkpils keep cats as their pets.
Process: Coding and Video Editing
After receiving the folk tale, I began coding in Visual Studio Code. I started with the header and put in all the required information: the title of the folk tale, the author, storyteller, editor, date, and place among others. It was a bit difficult, however, to find the exact geographical location of Chakping, the village in which the recording had taken place. After I had completed the header, I started encoding the folk tale. As we practiced this a lot in class, I encountered few problems while encoding the story. The only thing I had to remember though was to use italics. Encoding the song included in the folk tale was a bit more challenging, as there were multiple song sections, so I had to use a lot of tables and division elements to go back and forth between the narration and the song section of the folk tale. Lastly, I encoded the notes and the glossary. As we talked about this a lot during term as well and even changed our approach on how to do it, it went quite smoothly. I used <gloss xml:id> in the glossary and <term ref> in the story, because xml:id always needs to be unique and hence cannot be used in the code if a term comes up multiple times in the folk tale. At the end, after I had finished the coding, I checked what it looked like by converting the TEI document into a PDF via TEIGarage.
Then, I started with the subtitling of the video. I used the software SubTitle Edit one of my classmates recommended, as it is a lot easier to use than Davinci Resolve’s subtitle function. Because I used this software, I was able to work rather quickly on the subtitles, as I only had to copy and paste the subtitle text into the software and adjust the timestamps for each subtitle sequence after having set the settings to the correct amount of characters per line. Thanks to our instructor Tasun Tidorchibe, who provided me with the timestamps, I had no real issue with this process. The only thing that slowed me down a bit was the fact, that I had to use my family’s old laptop because the software did not work on my own computer. I exported the subtitles and then went on to work in Davinci Resolve for the video-editing.
Davinci Resolve, similar to my encounter with it during term, was a bit of a struggle once again. Not only did the software almost shut down when I was nearly done, but I also encountered a problem with the display of the video in the software itself, as the image was suddenly gone and even though I somehow managed to get it back, the size was off. Thankfully, nothing major happened and I was able to edit and finish without any damage to the video itself. During the video-editing process, I had to adjust some of the subtitle timestamps for them to align with the storyteller’s speech, as well as lengthen them a bit because some were just too short at first. I also added some subtitles for background noises and adjusted the overall look of the subtitles for them to be easier on the eyes. I had to render the video twice because I wanted to change some things after having a look at my first draft. Because I had issues with editing title, credits and the copyright in Davinci Resolve for the folk tale I worked on in class, I decided to use my computer’s own video-editing software for the finishing touches since I am more familiar with its handling.
So lastly, I used iMovie to add a title page, the credits and the CTS logo for the copyright. I was not able to put the logo into the video for the folk tale I worked on in class, because Davinci Resolve did not let me. With iMovie it thankfully worked, so I put the logo into the upper right corner of the video. With that I was able to finish the video-editing part without any further struggles and also completed my task in digitalising the folk tale.
Conclusion
With digitalising this Konkomba folk tale, not only is a version of the folk tale itself but also the culture and language it derives from preserved. As the Konkomba people are a minority culture and their folk tales are hence minority oratures, by not only translating but also digitalising and therefore preserving them, this folk tale, its story and its orality have been transported and archived (cf. Bandia 111). Contributing to this project really opened my eyes for the beauty of folk tales once again. When I was little, I loved fairy tales, folk tales and mythology from different cultures, but I did not keep up my interest in them all too much the older I got. Additionally, I also got to know a culture I had no previous knowledge about, which also shows the power folk tales hold in terms of transmitting and communicating more than just a story. I got to improve my coding and video-editing skills as well, which I had not utilised in quite a while. So all in all, this was a very enriching experience and now I know why old ladies like to keep cats as their pets – and this possibly not only in the Konkomba culture.
Secondary literature
Bandia, Paul. “Orality and translation”. Handbook of Translation Studies Volume 2, edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, pp. 108-112.
Pullum, Tracie. “Promoting Writing with Folktales.” The English Journal, vol. 87, no. 2, 1998, pp. 96-97.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. 1946. Berkley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1977.
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility. London, Routledge, 1995.
In the winter term of 2022/23, I participated in the ‘Demarginalising Orature’ seminar, organised and held by Dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker, Tasun Tidorchibe and Jana Mankau. The seminar aims at “decolonizing knowledge and making knowledge (and primary materials) from a Global South context available in a responsible way” [1]. We, the participants, were “introduced to Ghana’s literary culture and multiethnic society; the problem of major and minor languages and forms of expression; orality, literacy and digital media cultures; power relations in the postcolony and [our] bearing on acts of cultural translation” [1]. In an attempt to help demarginalise orature, we worked on digitising a collection of Konkomba folktales by encoding them with TEI so they can later be transformed into HTML format and uploaded to the Centre for Translation Studies’ github. We also subtitled a number of folktale narrations so the respective videos could be published in the HHU Mediathek and be made available to a broader audience. These documents can also be used for research purposes. Thus, we are contributing to the preservation and demarginalisation of Konkomba oral traditions.
Figure 1 TEI and Konkomba folktale telling session
Orature and Orality
As mentioned above, the seminar aims at demarginalising orature; oral literature. According to Turin et al., orature “broadly includes ritual texts, curative chants, epic poems, folk tales, creation stories, songs, myths, spells, legends, proverbs, riddles, tongue-twisters, recitations and historical narratives” [2]. Orality, in contrast to literacy, is characterised by its “immediacy, ephemerality, unpredictability, flexibility” [3], it is communication by spoken word and it is dependent on the teller’s memory and “occasion-bound” [3]. Furthermore, it is quite difficult to assign any authorship to oral traditions, as, according to Bisilki, they are usually passed on from the older generations to the next [4] and regarded “as communal intellectual property” [2] by the respective communities.
In the past, orality has often been regarded as inferior to literacy. The roots of this assumption lie, amongst other things, in colonialism. Bandia writes that “[m]odernity has ascribed a stigma to the concept of orality which has become synonymous with ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’” [5]. Thiong’o points out that “[t]he hegemony of the written over the oral comes with the printing press, the dominance of capitalism, and colonization. This hegemony, or its perception, has roots in the rider-and-the-horse pairing of master and slave, or colonizer and colonized, a process in which the latter begins to be demonized as the possessor of deficiencies, including of languages” [6].
But oral traditions have a long and rich history and are an integral part of many communities’ cultures all over the world. As Turin et al. point out, “oral literature such as narrative and song often serve as important cultural resources that retain and reinforce cultural values and group identity” [2]. This is the case for Konkomba folktales as well. Folktales (called itiin in Likpakpaln, the language of the Konkomba people) can have various purposes, depending on the context in which they are told, by or to whom they are told, what the folktale is about etc. They often contain moral lessons or offer explanations for why things are the way they are. But what applies to all folktales is that they are “sources of indigenous knowledge” [7].
Figure 2 Performance of kinachuŋ cultural dance
To give an example, one of the folktales discussed in the seminar is called “Why he Wasp has a tiny Waist”. This particular folktale was told by Waja Ngalbu in Chamba, Ghana. To quote the introduction of the folktale: “The following story relates how the wasp’s self-exile from his community eventually deformed him. It presents the wasp as a loner who refuses to participate in communal activities and thus incurs the wrath of his kith and kin. The story, grounded in the communal spirit of Konkomba funerals (particularly the kinachuŋ cultural dance), celebrates teamwork and depicts the centrality of communal living among Konkombas. The storyteller makes this clear at the outset of his narrative when he commences his tale with its moral lesson before relating the tale itself” [8]. So the folktale features an animal character (the Wasp, called ulangben in Likpakpaln) that interacts with human characters, as many Konkomba folktales do. According to Thiong’o, “in the narratives of orature, humans, birds, animals, and plants interact freely, often change into each others’ forms, and share language” [6]. The folktale gives an explanation to a real phenomenon (wasps have tiny waists) and it contains a moral lesson: the folktale highlights the importance of a communal spirit within the community. In Konkomba culture, it is important to attend communal activities like funerals or participate in farm work or other activities such as shelling maize. A folktale therefore transports values and elements of the respective culture, which, again, highlights the fact that oral traditions are an important source of indigenous knowledge and “essential vehicles for transmitting language and culture” [7].
The Konkomba People and Language
I have already touched on some aspects of Konkomba life, values and traditions, now I would like to give some more background information. The Konkomba people live in the area of the “Oti valley in the northern section of the Ghana-Togo border” [9] (see map below). It is estimated that there are a little over 1,2 million Konkomba people in total, about 112,000 of whom are living in the Togo area [7]. According to Kachim, it is widely agreed upon that the Konkomba are “one of the aboriginal groups of northern Ghana” [9].
Figure 3 Map of Konkomba areas in Ghana and Togo
When discussing Konkomba history, it is important to mention the aspect of colonisation. The Konkomba people were affected by this through imperialist Germany’s rule between 1884 and 1914. This is when they occupied Togo (and also Cameroon, Tanzania and Namibia). Eventually, “the German colonial empire was taken over by the French and the British” [10]. But the German rulers were met with resistance, also by Konkombas, for example “[o]n 14 May 1895, a German troop stationed at Katchamba, and led by the German von Carnap-Quernheimb, was violently attacked by Konkomba warriors armed with poisoned arrows” [11].
The Konkomba society is patrilineal, so the male offspring will inherit, a Konkomba community is also structured politically – there are “chiefs, elders, clan heads, family heads” [7] and the Konkomba believe in “God, lesser gods, ancestors, satan, evil spirits, reincarnation, etc.” [7]. Their primary occupations are farming and trading, which is why sometimes, during folktale telling sessions, farming related activities are done simultaneously (like shelling maize etc., an example of this can be seen and heard in this video).
Further information regarding Likpakpaln can be extracted from the image below:
Figure 4 Introduction to Likpakpaln by Tasun Tidorchibe
Final remarks
Participating in the “Demarginalising Orature” seminar was a very enriching experience. Not only did I gain skills in the fields of coding and video editing, I was also able to broaden my horizon by learning about the Konkomba society and language. As folktales are a source of indigenous knowledge, it is very important to preserve them. But this has to happen in a responsible and sensitive way (keeping in mind the colonial history and marginalisation). We have to remember that this is not our knowledge, so we have to give visibility to the original owners / holders of the knowledge (this is why, for example, the narrators of the folktales are always mentioned in the XML / PDF files and videos). Visibility is very important in the field of translation as well. That is why a foreignising mode of translation was used by Tasun Tidorchibe to translate the folktales from Likpakpaln into English. Here, you can see how some words in the text are untranslated. They are also listed at the bottom of the file in a glossary which gives explanations to the Likpakpaln terms. In this way, the source culture and language are not entirely “covered up”, but they are still visible to the reader. I can wholeheartedly recommend this seminar to any of my fellow students interested in doing something useful and meaningful.
[2] Turin, M., Wheeler, C., & Wilkinson, E. (2013). Oral Literature in the Digital Age: Archiving Orality and Connecting with Communities. Open Book Publishers, xiiii, xix, xix-xx. https://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0032
[4] Bisilki, K. A. (n.d.): Folktales And Gender Among The Bikpakpaam ‘Konkomba’ Of Ghana, 349.
[5] Bandia, P. (2018). Orality and Translation. Routledge, 108-109.
[6] Thiong’o, N. w. (2012). The Oral Narrative and the Writing Master. Orature, Orality, and Cyborality.In Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. Columbia University Press, 64, 76.
[11] Müller, B. (2022). The ›Mystery‹ of the Konkomba’s Severed Thumbs: Historical Fact, Colonial Rumour or Legend of the Defeated?. Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften Dezember 2021, 15(2), 96. doi:10.14361/zfk-2021-150208
During the session on the 19th of January, we worked on the finer details of our TEI files in Visual Studio Code. Because each group received a piece of paper that listed their errors, we spent the session correcting them.
Examples of Errors:
The gravest mistake my group made while encoding the stories was that we did not format the glossary and notes correctly.
code for the glossary in the story sectioncode for the glossary in the glossary section
The example from the pictures is our solution. We had previously mixed these two up and used the target tag in the glossary and the xml:id in the text itself. Sadly, this did not work in the same manner as the correct solution. Funnily enough, we managed to get it right in one of the stories we encoded but not the other one. I am still unsure how exactly we managed to do that.
We were also experiencing some difficulties while adding a link to the code. We were supposed to provide a link to the subtitled video of the story, however, we were unsure where exactly in the introduction it was supposed to appear. As could have been expected, we chose the wrong place, as the link is the last element of the introduction of each story. The picture below shows how a link can be added to a code.
link to the video in the code
While we were coding the link into the xml file, we also managed to make another mistake. We were so focused on trying to add this new element that we completely overlooked our spelling. In this case, we forgot the full stop at the end of the introductory paragraph after “click here”. Additionally, we somehow forgot to change one quotation mark in the story itself. As they are not allowed in this file, you need to change every quotation mark to the tag <q> when the quote begins and </q> when it ends. This can be seen in this example.
direct quote from the story
Lastly, we did not know that we each needed a name tag in the copyright information. We put both of our names into one name tag but changed it during this session.
Summary:
All in all, these were mistakes we made because we were not careful enough while we were coding. Many of them could have been avoided if we had read through our code a little more thoroughly; however, now we know what our mistakes were and we will be more careful in the future.
This session was also the last one we had before we held our presentations, so many groups already started to talk about how to organise this.
Subtitle Example: Bilinyi Chikpaab James narrates “Nachiin Pays for Feasting on Unyii’s Children” / Source: HHU Mediathek
Hello everyone! In this post I’m going to tell you a little bit about our last “Demarginalising Orature” session. As you may have guessed from the title, we talked about and worked on video editing and especially subtitling. In the past few weeks we have learned about Konkomba folktales, language and culture, we have worked with some of the folktales by encoding them using TEI. And now the next step is editing videos of Konkomba people narrating the folktales. Ultimately, you will find them in the HHU Mediathek.
Our last session
So, what happened in our seminar? Firstly, our tutor Jana gave a presentation, introducing us to a video editing program called DaVince Resolve (DVR). She also introduced us to some of the basics of subtitling. E.g. the length of a subtitle, which should be no more that 30 characters per second. The ideal length is 15-20 CPS but as Jana pointed out, this is quite difficult to achieve. Futhermore, a subtitle should always start synchronously with the speech (defining a subtitle’s start and stop point is called spotting). If the subtitle comprises 2 lines, it should be presented in pyramid form, so the upper sentence should ideally be shorter than the lower one. There are many more rules and conventions regarding subtitling but naming them all would go beyond the scope of this blog entry.
DaVinci Resolve and SubtitleEdit
“Edit” page in DaVince Resolve / Source: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
Then, a fellow student, Lisa, also gave a short presentation on DVR and also introduced us to another program. According to both Jana and Lisa, DVR can be a bit difficult to work with, especially in the beginning. But luckily Lisa is familiar with another subtitling software, which she introduced to us as well. It is called SubtitleEdit. You can find a very useful step by step tutorial for DVR and SubtitleEdit in her blog entry. Some “fun facts”: According to their website, DaVinci Resolve is Hollywood’s #1 post solution. Apparently, many films and TV-shows are edited in DVR. It was first released in 2004. SubtitleEdit, on the other hand, is a free open-source subtitle editor.
SubtitleEdit interface / Screenshot by Lisa
Conclusion
To sum it up, in our last session we learned about subtitles and subtiling tools. During our session, DaVinci Resolve made my laptop crash and there were definitely some initial difficulties. But SubtitleEdit is a bit more beginner-friendly and in the end we will manage to subtitle all our folktale videos, I am sure! Yet another step to conserving orality and making Konkomba folktales accessible to a broader audience!
In today’s session we did a presentation of our group work: Every group of two to three people encoded a folktale into TEI. We shared our experience with encoding itself, issues that occurred while working on the stories, and problems we had with the program Studio Visual Code.
Issues while encoding
The groups used different approaches to highlight the Likpakpaln terms: some just tagged them with <term>, others additionally highlighted them as superscript. There were also struggles with placing the end-tags at the right spot, but Jana revised our TEI-documents and made us aware of and helped with our issues and mistakes.
Livia and I had problems with the Live Sharing within Studio Visual Code, but worked our way around it. Our group also highlighted the headers with <hi rend=”bold”>, but Jana reminded us of the fact that by using the <head>-tag alone around the header it will already be visualized in bold writing, so after revising we took out the <hi>-tags to not overcrowd the document unnecessarily. Jana also pointed out that there was a little inconsistency in our xml:ids, since we had a little mix-up when tagging the terms with the appropriate ID.
One way to appoint an ID in the glossary … … and referencing it in the text.
There was a slight confusion in class about when to use the xml:id and the target attributes, since an ID must be unique within a document. Livia and I tried the solution of using the xml:id attributes within the <gloss>-tags in the glossary and referencing the IDs by using <term target=”#term-id”> around the terms within the text. As it turns out, this is working, so we were quite happy with finding a solution.
New folktale, new issues
Moving on, or rather continue practicing, the groups chose new folktales to work on. We were instructed to take on a story that contains a song, so we could practice the use of tables in a TEI-document for presenting the original Likpakpaln songtext next to its translation. The <table>-element is a tricky one, because you need to build a table with its rows and columns, which can be very hard to envision, when there is no spreadsheet in front of you, but instead something like this:
The first cell of a row always contains the line in Likpakpaln, the second the English translation.
Unfortunately (or luckily?), the folktale Livia and I chose contained a very simple song that only consisted of names and so it didn’t need a translation, ergo no table. Instead, we used the <l>-tags – l standing for ‘line’ – for each row.
The instructions in parenthesis might create a new problem: Should they be part of the song division or outside of it?
By encoding various folktales, I think all of us realized that TEI and XML are a bit complicated, but actually very logical in their use. Although it seemed abstruse and confusing when learning about the tags and attributes in the beginning, everything makes sense when practically working with it. Encoding is definitely a practice that needs a lot of exercise and revision to understand it. And our work within the sessions really helps here by applying the universally known phrase: learning by doing!
Last week we finished our introduction to TEI and started our group work of this semester.
TEI Introduction III
For the TEI part of the class we dealt with common mishaps that occurred in our TEI documents of the folktale “Why the Python’s Skin has Dark-Brown Blotches” which we worked on the week before. None were major mishaps, but they are still parts of the code that are important for the document to come together. These mishaps included: forgetting <head type=”subTitle”> to indicate subtitles in the document, closing divisions too soon, and – which wasn’t really a mishap at all – that we don’t need to use the <q>-tag anymore if we use a division for ‘song’.
Then we talked about how best to encode notes and glossaries by using a <list>-tag.
An example for <list>.
Another thing before we started with our group work was, that we talked about the issue that XML:IDs need to be unique, meaning that they can only be used once in the whole document, which proves difficult, if we want to ID the same term throughout a folktale. The work-around we decided on for this problem is that we will only ID the first instance a term comes up in a folktale, and only that one time. This also works great with our aim to foreignize the folktale for its readers, as only having an explanation for the first time an unknown term comes up means that the reader will have to engage with a folktale on a close level to understand it completely.
Just before starting the group work, we were shown a website that changes TEI documents to PDF (or other formats) so that we can check – after having finished with the code – whether everything has been correctly transferred or not. (You can find the link to the website here.) This is quite useful because we can avoid mistakes that we might not have seen with the preview feature in Visual Studio Code.
Group WOrk
And lastly for last week’s class we got together in our groups, decided on a folktale to work on, and started with that. Working on our own folktales was really doable thanks to the introduction to TEI the previous three weeks, and therefore I want to thank Jana and Tasun again for providing us with so much in-class information and answering our questions!
