MeTILDA

Melodic Transcription of Indigenous Language Documentation and Application (MeTILDA) is an ongoing project conducted in collaboration with Min Chen (University of Washington-Bothell), James Randall (Music, University of Montana), and Naatosi Fish (Blackfeet, UM alum).

This tool lets teachers draw Pitch Art, and the scale of the pitch movement is adjusted so that it matches people’s visual perception. It also includes features for language teaching and learning. 

MeTILDA is still under-development and not yet available to wide users, though the project team's goal includes making it available to interested researchers, teachers, and students. Inception of the project and other related concepts (collaborative community-based research) are presented at various conference. The team receives feedback from various Indigenous community linguists and linguists work with communities that they would like to try the tool when available. The project team welcomes community and academic members who would volunteer to test MeTIDLA. 

Presentations:

• Mizuki Miyashita, Naatosi Fish, Min Chen, and James Randall. 2020. "Addressing Concerns in Linguistics and Oedagogy Through Collaboration."  Montana-Alberta Conference on Linguistics (mACOL). November 14, 2020. Virtual Conference. University of Montana. 
• Mizuki Miyashita, Min Chen, James Randall, and Mitchell Lee. 2019. “MeTILDA: Pitch Movements with Standardized F0 Perceptual Intervals.” SSILA summer meeting. July 13.
• Mizuki Miyashita, Min Chen, James Randall, and Mitchell Lee. 2019. “Melodic Transcription in Language Documentation and Application (MeTILDA): Automated Pitch Movements with Standardized F0 Perceptual Intervals.” 6^th ICLDC. University of Hawaii – Manoa.

Pitch Art

Pitch Art is a visual guide used to teach word melody of language of which prosodic characteristic is composed of particular pitch movements throughout a word. The idea is to help English-speaking learners realize the salient prosodic characteristic of the target languages is distinct from that of English, and assist them practice and acquire pronunciation obtaining as accurate word melody as possible.

The idea of the Pitch Art is developed out of conversations with the community collaborator, Naatosi Fish who took a lead on its development. The Pitch Art images shown above are developed based on word melody in Blackfoot. These Pitch Art images were introduced to students in Blackfoot language course when Fish taught in 2017-2019.  The image in left is taken in Fall 2018. There are more pitch melodies in Blackfoot to be researched which can be applied to Pitch Art creation. Initial impression among the students who were introduced to Pitch Art is promising. Since the prosodic difference among languages are not conscious knowledge, the purpose and the use of these images need to be instructed for the effectiveness. See articles below about the development background and initial research in its effect. 

• Fish, N. 2018. "Pedagogy of Pitch in L2 Blackfoot. Undergraduate." Theses and Professional Papers. U of Montana.
• Fish, N. and M. Miyashita. 2017. Guiding Pronunciation of Blackfoot Melody. In Honoring Our Teachers. Eds. By J. Reyhner, J. Martin, L. Lockard & W. Sakiestewa Gilbert. Flagstaff, AZ: NAU. pp 203-210.