Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Investigating language variation and change
- Part 1 Collecting empirical data
- Part 1.1 Fieldwork and linguistic mapping
- 1 Collecting ethnographic and sociolinguistic data
- 2 Using participant observation and social network analysis
- 3 Computer mapping of language data
- Part 1.2 Eliciting linguistic data
- Part 1.3 Alternatives to standard reference corpora
- Part 2 Analysing empirical data
- Part 3 Evaluating empirical data
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
1 - Collecting ethnographic and sociolinguistic data
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Investigating language variation and change
- Part 1 Collecting empirical data
- Part 1.1 Fieldwork and linguistic mapping
- 1 Collecting ethnographic and sociolinguistic data
- 2 Using participant observation and social network analysis
- 3 Computer mapping of language data
- Part 1.2 Eliciting linguistic data
- Part 1.3 Alternatives to standard reference corpora
- Part 2 Analysing empirical data
- Part 3 Evaluating empirical data
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
‘Who would want to pore over ancient manuscripts in a library when they could sit under a tree with Emmanuel Rowe and a bottle of rum?’
Robert B. Le Page (1920–2006) in his memoirs (Le Page 1998: 58)Introduction
Doing successful fieldwork is perhaps the most underestimated academic skill of all. For some reason or other, being out in the field to collect data is often regarded as some time off from ‘serious research’ in the lab or office, as a part of research that is certainly important yet not really central. When one enquires why recording conversations with people for a sociolinguistic project should be an easy task, the response one usually hears is that, after all, fieldwork ‘only’ involves having ‘a chat’ with somebody, which most of us do in our daily routines anyway (so what’s special about it?). Some have gone as far as to claim that fieldwork is not really work at all. Labov (1997) famously recalls that ‘I remember one time a fourteen-year-old in Albuquerque said to me, “Let me get this straight. Your job is going anywhere in the world, talking to anybody about anything you want?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I want that job!”’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Research Methods in Language Variation and Change , pp. 17 - 35Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
- 3
- Cited by