Seth Cable Field Methods Fall 2010 Ling404 1 Fieldwork on an Unfamiliar Language: Some Preliminary ‘How To’ Notes The primary skill this class seeks to develop is the simple skill of ‘asking questions’, a skill that has two principal components: (1) The Two Principal Components of Skillful Fieldwork a. Manners Asking questions in a way that keeps the speaker feeling comfortable (doesn’t make them uncomfortable); generally keeping the whole experience a bearable one for the speaker b. Methodology Asking questions in a way that yields information of maximal value to linguistic study. Note: These two ‘sides’ to the interview process are not in competition with one another. Indeed, one cannot hope to accomplish (1b) without continually maintaining (1a). Although this is a ‘learn-by-doing’ class, it doesn’t hurt to start off with some general notes and pointers. The notes below follow our general two-way division in (1). 1. On ‘Manners’ “It may be something of a cliché, but all it takes is a little sensitivity and a willingness to learn.” (Crowley, Field Linguistics: A Beginners Guide; p. 172) While so-called ‘fieldwork’ these days can take a lot of forms, the one absolute, invariable, sine qua non is that you are working one-on-one with an actual person, a speaker of the language. Thus, a good portion of the ‘art’ of the craft is ‘interpersonal social intelligence’, or just plain ‘getting along with people and making them feel comfortable’. While there are many little ‘tips’ that are good to keep in mind here, they all follow from the general, over-arching principle: (2) Respect Treat the speaker with (friendly) respect: Keep in mind that they are a human being, an essential ‘collaborator’ in the project, whose time is valuable, and who (particularly if they are older) probably know a good bit more about life and the world than you do.Seth Cable Field Methods Fall 2010 Ling404 2 From the general principle in (2) spring many smaller, general pieces of advice, which can also be organized according to various ‘subheadings’: (3) Friendliness a. Always maintain friendliness and ‘cheerfulness’ during meetings. (This can be difficult if you tend to be shy, in which case, you simply must do your best to overcome your inherent shyness/awkwardness.) b. Always maintain your own ‘engagement’ and ‘enthusiasm’ during meetings. (Never be detached or perfunctory with the speaker.) c. Always be appreciative of the speaker’s contributions. (i) Greet all data appreciatively and interestedly, even if -- it’s off the subject you want to talk about (after all, all data is useful!) -- it contradicts a ‘pet analysis’ of yours (ii) Always thank the speaker for their time (even if you are also monetarily compensating them). d. Never, in any way, be aggressive, challenging or confrontational with the speaker! (i) Never get visibly upset (disappointed) if the data from the speaker challenge a pet hypothesis of yours! -- “Oh crap! I thought it would be X! Too bad, I guess!” (ii) Never challenge the data given by the speaker. -- “But, earlier you said X! That’s weird!” (iii) Never tell the speaker, in any fashion, that their judgment is ‘wrong’ -- “But, the grammar says that the way you say it is X!” “One of the first basic lessons in elicitation should be ‘Never tell your [speaker] that he/she has given the wrong answer.” (Crowley, Field Linguistics: A Beginners Guide; p. 96)Seth Cable Field Methods Fall 2010 Ling404 3 (4) Comfort Always strive to keep the speaker comfortable, strive to keep this from being a ‘negative experience’ for them. a. Keep things friendly! (cf (3)) b. Be careful not to overwork the speaker. (i) Always be mindful of the attention- and interest-level of the speaker. (ii) Always be prepared to stop, take breaks, or move on to other things if they seem like they would appreciate it. (iii) Don’t heap question-upon-question on the speaker. Keep the ‘intensity’ of the interview nicely paced. (5) Courteousness and Sensitivity Don’t treat the speaker as a piece of furniture, or as some kind of ‘query machine’ that just ‘shuts off’ when you aren’t talking to it. (i) Direct all questions about the language to the speaker (ii) Look the speaker in the eyes when asking a question. (iii) Avoid having extended (or heated!) arguments with team-mates in front of the speaker 2. On ‘Methodology’ The other, more specialized skill that ‘field work’ requires is knowing what kinds of questions/tasks yield the best kind of information about the language. Here, there are three very broad, fundamental points that apply across various sub-discussions. (6) Write Everything Down… Everything! Everything, every little comment made by the speaker is valuable information. Don’t assume you can rely on the recordings or the transcriptions! Sometimes the recordings may be unclear, in which case your class notes will be of essential utility!Seth Cable Field Methods Fall 2010 Ling404 4 (7) The Data Speakers Give Us Are Always (Merely) “Clues” The speakers of a language cannot on their own provide the answer to a linguistic question, even a question like “is X syntactically well-formed in the language?” Rather, the information we get from speakers is a set of clues. As the analysts (linguists), we use these clues to arrive at a ‘best-guess’ regarding the answer to the linguistic question we are interested in. a. Example 1: • We want to know if the syntax of the language allows ‘S(ubject)-O(bject)-V(erb)’ word order. • We construct a sentence S that has SOV word order and ask the speaker “would you ever say something like S”. The speaker answers ‘no’. • Has this conclusively shown that SOV is syntactically ill-formed in the language? NO! The speaker has only rejected one sentence on one occasion. There could be a million reasons why they offered a negative judgment here. • However, after we collect more data, it may be that – when combined with judgments like