Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Fieldwork as a state of mind
- 2 Who shapes the record: the speaker and the linguist
- 3 Places and people: field sites and informants
- 4 Ulwa (Southern Sumu): the beginnings of a language research project
- 5 Escaping Eurocentrism: fieldwork as a process of unlearning
- 6 Surprises in Sutherland: linguistic variability amidst social uniformity
- 7 The role of text collection and elicitation in linguistic fieldwork
- 8 Monolingual field research
- 9 The give and take of fieldwork: noun classes and other concerns in Fatick, Senegal
- 10 Phonetic fieldwork
- 11 Learning as one goes
- 12 The last speaker is dead – long live the last speaker!
- Index
11 - Learning as one goes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Fieldwork as a state of mind
- 2 Who shapes the record: the speaker and the linguist
- 3 Places and people: field sites and informants
- 4 Ulwa (Southern Sumu): the beginnings of a language research project
- 5 Escaping Eurocentrism: fieldwork as a process of unlearning
- 6 Surprises in Sutherland: linguistic variability amidst social uniformity
- 7 The role of text collection and elicitation in linguistic fieldwork
- 8 Monolingual field research
- 9 The give and take of fieldwork: noun classes and other concerns in Fatick, Senegal
- 10 Phonetic fieldwork
- 11 Learning as one goes
- 12 The last speaker is dead – long live the last speaker!
- Index
Summary
What does one need to know, ideally, when beginning to do fieldwork? As I think back to when I first did fieldwork, review my years of active and intensive fieldwork, and consider teaching a field methods course, many different things come to mind. In this article, I will concentrate on a few lessons about the linguistic aspects of fieldwork that I learned early on in doing this work, including the following items, which can perhaps be thought of as slogans to keep in mind when preparing to do fieldwork:
a) Pay careful attention to information about the language that the speaker you are working with wants you to hear.
b) Know the available literature and respect it, but keep in mind that there is always more to learn.
c) Avoid isolating areas of the language so that you lose track of the fact that language is a complex, dynamic system.
d) Bring as much knowledge as you can, from all domains – about language, about linguistics, about people.
e) Do not straightjacket the language into categories that you bring to it – let it live on its own.
f) Do not think that language is a monolithic entity within a community. There is variation within language, and this must be part of any analysis.
g) Not all speakers have the same strengths.
h) A good working relationship is an evolving thing. Both speakers and the linguist must get to know one another.
i) Be open to learn.
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- Linguistic Fieldwork , pp. 230 - 249Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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