JOURNAL OF MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES VOL. II, 2014. JMCS.HOME.AMU.EDU.PL The use and interoperability of computer programmes Folker, ELAN and Praat for multimodal linguistic annotation Silvia Bonacchi, Mariusz Mela University of Warsaw Institute of Specialised and Intercultural Communication, ul. Szturmowa 4, 02-678, Warsaw, Poland Email(s) s.bonacchi@uw.edu.pl, mariusz.mela@gmail.com Abstract The paper describes the experience of the MCCA research group with regards to the interoperability of Folker, ELAN and Praat computer programmes for multimodal linguistic annotation, describing the reasons for choosing them instead of other available software. Furthermore, from the point of view of users the authors indicate the possible (technical) solutions that could facilitate the work of linguistic annotators of multilingual data. Keywords: interoperability, spoken language, culturological analysis, suprasegmental analysis, multimodal analysis. 1. Introduction The Praat (version 5834_win64, www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat, developed by Paul Boersma and David Weenink), Folker (version 1.2., agd.ids-mannheim.de/folker.shtml, developed by Thomas Schmidt, Wilfried Schütte and Martin Hartung) and ELAN (Eudico Linguist ic Annotator, version 4.7.3, http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan, developed by Han Slotjes) computer programmes can be used in tandem for the purposes of pragmalinguistic analysis of speech corpora. The above mentioned tools are used in the MCCA (“Multimodal Communication: Culturological Analysis”, www.mcca.uw.edu.pl, in extended form: “Culturological and suprasegmental analysis of communicative interactions marked by (im)politeness”, supported by a grant from the Polish National Science Centre, UMO-2012/04/M/HS2/00551) project for suprasegmental, multimodal and culturological analyses (see Müller, 1998; Ogden, 2006; Poggi, 2007; McNeill, 2005; Schmitt, 2005; Bonacchi 2013; Bonacchi & Karpiński, 2014), i.e. an analysis of vocal, verbal and kinetic displays (according to Sager, 2004: 123ff.) as relevant communicative behaviour in several cultural settings.