Research Assistant Training
October-November 2025
Between 06 and 24 October and between 17 and 28 November 2025, the project PI Tim conducted a training programme for the two Bhutanese Research Assistants, Sonam and Rinchen. The training commenced with an introduction to the Lo-Rig project goals and objectives, the project staff, and the work packages and planning for the five years of the project.
The Research Assistants were also introduced to the field of linguistics, including topics such as basic phonetics and phonology and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), parts of speech, verbal agreement including the project's focus on biactantial and polypersonal verbal agreement, orthographies and orthography development, and the linguistic diversity of Bhutan.
The two Research Assistants were familiarised with important topics such as research ethics, data protection, informed consent, open access, and cybersecurity. The Participant Information Leaflets (PILs) and Informed Consent Forms developed at Trinity College Dublin were translated into Dzongkha and subsequently summarised and translated into Gongduk and Monkha.
The Research Assistants were introduced to best practices in linguistic fieldwork. They translated the regionally relevant wordlist into Dzongkha and Tshangla and practised elicitation and transcription in their respective languages, Monkha and Gongduk.
The Research Assistants also practised using the recording equipment in different contexts and conditions. A field visit was made to the Folk Heritage Museum in Canggangkha, Thimphu, to gain an understanding of the types of household items, tools, and practices that would be of interest for elicitation and recording in their respective communities.
The Research Assistants received their project laptops, and the required software was installed on them. Tim explained the ELAN–FLEx workflow and the potential scope and benefits of applying Automatic Speech Recognition to speed up the transcription of recordings. They then practised the manual transcription of recordings in ELAN.
