Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork

Citation

Meakins, F., Green, J., & Turpin, M. (2018). Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork. Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The book belongs to Routledge's Understanding Language series and has twelve chapters in about 290 pages, followed by appendices: a map of the major languages referred to, answers to exercises, a glossary and abbreviations, and an index. The authors work on Australian languages: Felicity Meakins (University of Queensland) on the languages of the Victoria River District and the effect of English on Indigenous languages, Jennifer Green (University of Melbourne) on lexicography, multimodal narrative and sign language, and Myfany Turpin (University of Sydney) on poetry, song, ethnobiology and language revitalisation. The publisher describes the book as teaching students to collect good-quality data ethically and responsibly, with a focus on fieldwork in countries that have undergone colonial expansion (Australia, the United States, Canada, South America and Africa). The structure has two halves: four chapters on the practice of fieldwork, then seven chapters on fieldwork in particular areas of linguistics.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The opening chapter (about 24 pages) introduces the book and the field. The publisher's emphasis on ethics and on collaboration with language communities runs through the book's description.

Chapters 2–4: Planning for fieldwork; Equipment and recording; Data management, annotation and archiving

The practical core: planning a field project, choosing equipment and making recordings, and managing, annotating and archiving the data afterwards. Each chapter runs to between 23 and 25 pages.

Chapter 5: Phonetics and phonology

The first of the chapters on specialist methods, covering fieldwork for describing a language's sound system.

Chapter 6: Morpho-syntax

Methods for grammatical description, one of the two longest chapters (about 32 pages).

Chapter 7: Semantic fieldwork and lexicography

Researching meaning and compiling dictionaries, the other 32-page chapter, which the publisher counts with phonology and grammar among the core descriptive areas.

Chapter 8: Sign and gesture

Fieldwork methods for sign languages and for gesture (about 31 pages). Keren Rice, quoted by the publisher, notes that sign language is among the areas not standardly found in the fieldwork literature.

Chapters 9–11: Child language acquisition; Contact languages; Verbal art

Three further areas that Rice describes as figuring prominently in language documentation today but rarely covered in fieldwork guides: studying how children acquire a language in the field, working on contact languages, and working on verbal art (Myfany Turpin's own research covers poetry and song).

Chapter 12: A final word

A short concluding chapter of four pages.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–4: Doing fieldwork

• Ethical and responsible fieldwork: data collection that respects the rights and goals of the speakers and communities involved.
• Collaboration with language communities: research partnerships whose results, the publisher notes, can support language revitalisation as well as linguistic understanding.
• Recording and equipment: the practical choices behind good-quality recordings.
• Annotation and archiving: making recorded data usable and preserving it for the future.

Chapters 5–11: Specialist methods

• Phonological and grammatical description: fieldwork aimed at describing the sound system and the morpho-syntax of a language.
• Semantic fieldwork and lexicography: investigating word meaning and building dictionaries.
• Sign and gesture: language and communication in the visual modality.
• Child language acquisition: studying how children acquire the language under study.
• Contact languages: languages that arise or change through contact, a theme the authors' own research on English and Indigenous languages addresses.
• Verbal art: song, poetry and other artistic uses of language.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Wider scope than most fieldwork guides. Rice, quoted by the publisher, calls the book a one-stop introduction to fieldwork as currently conceived and singles out sign language, child language acquisition, contact languages and verbal arts as areas not standardly found in the fieldwork literature. Chapters 8–11 give these about a third of the book.
• Community context. Anthony Woodbury, also quoted, praises the attention to the community contexts in which documentation takes place. The publisher stresses ethics and examples of resources produced with language communities.
• Practical support for students. The book includes exercises with answers, a glossary, a map of the languages discussed and annotated guidance on further reading.
• Balanced length. The specialist chapters are of similar size (22–32 pages), so no one area dominates.

Limitations

• A regional perspective. The authors' experience is with Australian languages, and the publisher's focus is on countries that have undergone colonial expansion; students preparing fieldwork in other settings will need to supplement the advice on community relations and ethics.
• Introductions rather than manuals. One chapter per area cannot replace a full guide to, for example, grammatical elicitation or phonetic analysis; the book points to further reading for that.
• Dated details. Published in 2018, the chapters on equipment, data management and archiving deal with technology and practices that change quickly.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the gentlest introduction to fieldwork in the course and the one with the widest range of topics. Claire Bowern's Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide is a practical handbook that goes from planning to archiving and covers elicitation across phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse and the writing of grammars, dictionaries and texts; it is the natural companion or next step for students who will do fieldwork themselves. Thomas Payne's Describing Morphosyntax is organised as an outline of a descriptive grammar and supports the work that Chapter 6 introduces.

On the analytical side, Paul Kroeger's Analyzing Grammar trains the morphological and syntactic analysis of unfamiliar languages that field data require, and Viveka Velupillai's An Introduction to Linguistic Typology shows how the world's languages vary, which helps fieldworkers know what to look for. William Croft's Typology and Universals is the advanced treatment of typological method and theory.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduates and postgraduates taking a fieldwork or language documentation module, and anyone preparing a first field trip. An introductory linguistics course is helpful, since the specialist chapters assume basic notions of phonology, morphology and syntax.

A reading plan:

• Core for everyone: Chapters 1–4, in order, before any fieldwork or recording begins.
• Choose specialist chapters to match the project: Chapters 5–7 for language description; Chapters 8–11 for projects on sign, acquisition, contact or verbal art.
• Finish with Chapter 12.

Do the exercises and check them against the answers at the back. Practise the recording and annotation advice of Chapters 3–4 on a small project, for example a recording with a speaker of another language, before working in the field. Use the annotated reading suggestions to find the specialist manual for the area of your project, and pair the book with Bowern for a full practical handbook. The book is also available in an open-access edition under a Creative Commons licence, listed in the Directory of Open Access Books.