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10 results

Linguistic Fieldwork
  • Edited by Paul Newman, Martha Ratliff
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    21 June 2001
  • This book is a collection of original essays on the practice of linguistic fieldwork and language documentation. Twelve of the leading field linguists in the world have written personal essays about the study of languages in a natural setting. Drawing on extensive research experience, they pass on the lessons they have learnt, review the techniques that they found worked best in practice, and discuss a variety of relevant topics, including the attitude of the linguist, the structure and content of the work session, the varied roles of native speakers, and the practical and personal challenges of doing research in an unfamiliar environment. Covering a wide range of field areas, and written in an accessible manner, the book will be indispensable to fieldworkers in linguistics, anthropology, folklore and oral history.

  • Introduction

  • Edited by Paul Newman, Indiana University, Martha Ratliff, Wayne State University
  • Book:
    Linguistic Fieldwork
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    21 June 2001, pp 1-14

  • Summary

    After a long period of neglect, fieldwork in linguistics is beginning to attract real attention and interest again in the United States. This interest has been sparked by a concern in the discipline about endangered languages but now transcends that specific issue. The trend is evident in the involvement of national and international organizations in the effort to publicize the need for language documentation; the growing number of conferences and workshops on endangered languages, linguistic fieldwork, and the role of data in the formulation of linguistic theory; the growth in training programs in linguistic fieldwork; and the greater success fieldworkers have experienced in winning government as well as private grants to support language documentation projects. The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has provided leadership with the first three of these efforts: its interest in endangered languages and fieldwork was made formal in 1992 when the Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation was established. In 1994, the LSA issued a policy statement on “The Need for the Documentation of Linguistic Diversity.” Symposia on fieldwork are now a regular part of the program of the LSA annual meetings and courses on fieldwork practice have routinely been offered in recent years at the LSA summer linguistics institutes.

  • Phonation types in production of phonological tone: the case of Green Mong

  • Jean E. Andruski, Martha Ratliff
  • Journal:
    Journal of the International Phonetic Association / Volume 30 / Issue 1-2 / December 2000
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    07 May 2009, pp. 37-61
    Print publication:
    December 2000

  • This study looks at the relative importance of phonation type in identifying tones in languages with a ‘mixed’ pitch/phonation tone system. Green Mong is a tone language with an inventory of 7 contrastive tones and a tonal system that incorporates both fundamental frequency (FO) and phonation type distinctions. The study examines 3 Green Mong tones, which have similar FO contours and are characterized by the distinctive use of breathy, creaky and modal phonation. Acoustic analyses of 3 male and 3 female speakers' productions indicate that the tones are distinguished by their FO, relative amplitude of lower and higher harmonics (H1-H2), vowel duration, vowel quality and voice onset times. Discriminant analyses, used to estimate the relative value of these different cues, indicate that H1-H2 is the best predictor of tone category membership. This is the case for both high and low vowels, although the magnitude of the H1-H2 difference is substantially smaller for high vowels. The 2 predictor variables which are next most strongly correlated with the discriminant functions also relate to phonation type. However, FO does continue to play a role in classification of tokens into tone categories.