Table Of Contenti
Understanding Linguistic
Fieldwork
Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork offers a diverse and practical introduction to
research methods used in field linguistics. Designed to teach students how to col-
lect quality linguistic data in an ethical and responsible manner, the key features
include:
• A focus on fieldwork in countries and continents that have undergone colonial
expansion, including Australia, the United States of America, Canada, South
America and Africa;
• A description of specialist methods used to conduct research on phonological,
grammatical and lexical description, but also including methods for research
on gesture and sign, language acquisition, language contact and the verbal arts;
• Examples of resources that have resulted from collaborations with language
communities and which both advance linguistic understanding and support
language revitalisation work;
• Annotated guidance on sources for further reading.
This book is essential reading for students studying modules relating to linguistic
fieldwork or those looking to embark upon field research.
Felicity Meakins is a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. She special-
ises in the documentation of Australian languages in the Victoria River District in
northern Australia and the effect of English on Indigenous languages.
Jennifer Green is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her main
research interests are descriptive linguistics, lexicography, multimodality in narra-
tive practices and sign language.
Myfany Turpin is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. Her research is in
descriptive linguistics, poetry, song, ethnobiology and language revitalization.
ii
Understanding Language series
Series Editors:
Bernard Comrie, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Greville Corbett, University of Surrey, UK
The Understanding Language series provides approachable, yet authoritative,
introductions to major topics in linguistics. Ideal for students with little or no prior
knowledge of linguistics, each book carefully explains the basics, emphasising
understanding of the essential notions rather than arguing for a particular theoreti-
cal position.
Other titles in the series:
Understanding Phonetics
Patricia Ashby
Understanding Morphology, Second Edition
Martin Haspelmath and Andrea D. Sims
Understanding Language Testing
Dan Douglas
Understanding Second Language Acquisition
Lourdes Ortega
Understanding Pragmatics
Gunter Senft
Understanding Child Language Acquisition
Caroline Rowland
Understanding Semantics, Second Edition
Sebastian Löbner
Understanding Syntax, Fourth Edition
Maggie Tallerman
Study Skills for Linguistics
Jeanette Sakel
Understanding Language Change
Kate Burridge and Alexander Bergs
Understanding Phonology, Fourth Edition
Carlos Gussenhoven and Haike Jacobs
Understanding Linguistic Fieldwork
Felicity Meakins, Jennifer Green and Myfany Turpin
For more information on any of these titles, or to order, go to
www.routledge.com/ series/ ULAN
iii
Understanding
Linguistic
Fieldwork
Felicity Meakins
Jennifer Green
Myfany Turpin
iv
First edition published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Felicity Meakins, Jennifer Green, Myfany Turpin
The right of Felicity Meakins, Jennifer Green and Myfany Turpin to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Meakins, Felicity, author. | Turpin, Myfany, 1972– author. |
Green, Jennifer, 1954– author.
Title: Understanding linguistic fieldwork / Felicity Meakins,
Myfany Turpin, Jennifer Green.
Description: First edition. | Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon : New York, NY :
Routledge, [2018] | Series: Understanding language series; 1 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046542 | ISBN 9780415786126 (hardback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780415786133 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780203701294 (ebook : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Linguistics–Fieldwork. | Linguistic Anthropology.
Classification: LCC P128.F53 M424 2018 | DDC 410.72–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046542
ISBN: 978- 0- 415- 78612- 6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 415- 78613- 3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 203- 70129- 4 (ebk)
Typeset in Minion Pro and Times New Roman
by Out of House Publishing
Cover image: Bush potato or desert yam (Ipomoea costata). Photo: Jennifer Green
v
Contents
List of figures xii
List of tables xv
Acknowledgements xvi
Linguistic abbreviations xviii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Overview 2
1.2 Definitions 3
1.2.1 What makes a good field linguist? 3
1.2.2 ‘Insider’ and ‘outsider’ linguists 4
1.2.3 What is meant by ‘fieldwork’? 6
1.2.4 Linguistic description versus language documentation 8
1.2.5 Language vitality 10
1.2.6 Who is a speaker? 11
1.3 Your project 12
1.4 Workflow from go to woe 16
1.5 About us (first person plural exclusive) 21
1.6 Summary 22
1.7 Further reading 22
References 22
2 Planning for fieldwork 25
2.1 Introduction 25
2.2 Identifying a speech community 25
2.3 Research on the field location 27
2.4 Ways of working in the field 28
2.4.1 Who is the fieldworker responsible to? 29
2.4.2 Who controls the research? 30
2.4.3 Ownership, access and uses of research materials 31
2.4.4 Intellectual property, copyright and licensing 32
2.4.5 Balancing rights in the field 33
2.5 Formal ethics applications and procedures 34
2.5.1 Project information sheet 35
2.5.2 Participant consent form 37
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vi Contents
2.6 Authorship and acknowledgements 38
2.6.1 Referring to your examples in publications 40
2.7 Planning ahead for the field 41
2.7.1 Visas, vaccinations and vehicles 41
2.7.2 Timing of field trips 42
2.7.3 Organising remuneration for research participants 42
2.7.4 Gathering resources 43
2.7.5 Keeping in touch 44
2.8 Summary 44
2.9 Further reading 45
References 45
3 Equipment and recording 48
3.1 Introduction 48
3.2 Recording equipment 48
3.2.1 Audio recording equipment 50
3.2.2 Microphones 51
3.2.3 Windshields 53
3.2.4 Microphone cables 54
3.2.5 Video recording equipment 55
3.2.6 Still photography 57
3.2.7 Backups, batteries, memory cards and storage 57
3.2.8 User- friendly choices 58
3.2.9 Looking after equipment 58
3.2.10 Other useful gear 59
3.2.11 Trying things out 60
3.2.12 Before you head off 60
3.3 During fieldwork 61
3.3.1 Safety first 61
3.3.2 Making good audio recordings 61
3.3.3 Making good video recordings 65
3.3.4 Keeping good notebooks 68
3.4 The first fieldwork session 69
3.5 At the end of the day 71
3.6 Summary 71
3.7 Further reading 71
References 72
4 Data management, annotation and archiving 73
4.1 Introduction 73
4.2 First steps in data management 73
4.2.1 File naming 73
4.2.2 What is metadata and why is it important? 75
4.2.3 Categories of metadata 76
4.2.4 Where to keep your metadata 77
vii
Contents vii
4.3 Transcription and annotation 79
4.3.1 Time- aligning transcriptions and annotations 79
4.3.2 Software tools 80
4.3.3 Segmentation 82
4.3.4 Transcription techniques 83
4.4 Archiving 83
4.4.1 Exploring archives 85
4.4.2 Depositing in archives – when, where, what and how? 88
4.4.3 Landing pages and access platforms 88
4.4.4 Challenges for archives and their users 89
4.4.5 Scholarly recognition and transparency 90
4.4.6 The open access question 91
4.5 Summary 92
4.6 Further reading 92
References 93
5 Phonetics and phonology 96
5.1 Introduction 96
5.2 Recording data 98
5.3 Phonetic transcription 99
5.4 Phonological analysis 100
5.4.1 Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs 101
5.4.2 Identifying allophones 102
5.5 Native speaker intuitions on phonology 105
5.6 Phonemic transcription 106
5.7 Identifying tone 107
5.8 Stress, phonotactics and prosody 108
5.9 Experimental design 109
5.10 Instrumental phonetic fieldwork 112
5.11 Orthography 114
5.11.1 Phonological considerations 115
5.11.2 Grapheme or literacy considerations 115
5.11.3 Socio- political considerations 116
5.12 Summary 118
5.13 Further reading 118
References 119
6 Morpho- syntax 121
6.1 The value of formal elicitation for grammatical description 122
6.2 What language to perform elicitation in? 123
6.3 What equipment to use? 124
6.4 Establishing parts of speech 124
6.5 Getting started with clause- level elicitation 126
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viii Contents
6.6 Suggestions for successful elicitation 127
6.6.1 General tips 127
6.6.2 Back translation 128
6.6.3 A culturally embedded grammar 129
6.6.4 Mindful elicitation 129
6.7 Areas of grammar to focus on 130
6.7.1 Grammatical relations 131
6.7.2 Verb distinctions 133
6.7.3 Possession 137
6.7.4 Pronoun distinctions 138
6.7.5 Spatial relations 140
6.7.6 Number 142
6.7.7 Information structure categories 142
6.7.8 Noun classes and gender 142
6.7.9 Evidentiality 144
6.7.10 Derivation vs inflection 145
6.7.11 Clitics vs affixes 146
6.8 Finding a home for your grammatical description 147
6.9 Summary 149
6.10 Further reading 149
References 150
7 Semantic fieldwork and lexicography 153
7.1 Introduction 153
7.2 Eliciting vocabulary 154
7.2.1 Semantic domains 154
7.2.2 Taxonomies and other classification systems 157
7.3 Elicitation using non- linguistic stimuli 160
7.4 Special registers 162
7.5 Lexicography 164
7.5.1 Types of dictionaries 164
7.5.2 Starting small 167
7.6 What’s in a dictionary 168
7.6.1 Headwords 168
7.6.2 Writing definitions 170
7.6.3 Putting encyclopaedic and cultural knowledge in definitions 171
7.6.4 Folk definitions 171
7.6.5 Illustrative examples 172
7.6.6 Finders and reversals 173
7.6.7 Front matter and end matter 174
7.6.8 What words to put in and what to leave out? 174
7.7 Tools for making and displaying dictionaries 175
7.7.1 Tools for making dictionaries 175
7.7.2 Digital dictionary interfaces 177
ix
Contents ix
7.8 Summary 180
7.9 Further reading 180
References 181
8 Sign and gesture 185
8.1 Introduction 185
8.2 Different types of sign languages 186
8.3 Gesture 187
8.4 Some reasons to study sign and gesture 189
8.5 Some considerations when working on sign languages 191
8.5.1 Working in teams 191
8.5.2 Speech effects on sign language 192
8.5.3 Number of participants 192
8.5.4 Informed consent 192
8.5.5 Anonymity 192
8.5.6 Metadata for sign languages and gesture 193
8.6 Research methods for documenting gesture and sign 193
8.6.1 Elicitation and other methods 194
8.6.2 Quizzes and decoding tests 196
8.6.3 Filming gesture and sign 197
8.7 Annotating sign languages and gesture 199
8.7.1 What to annotate first 199
8.7.2 Building a corpus of sign 203
8.7.3 Representing gesture and sign in publications 204
8.7.4 Sign language dictionaries 209
8.8 Summary 211
8.9 Further reading 211
References 212
9 Child language acquisition 216
9.1 Introduction 216
9.2 Why document child language acquisition? 216
9.3 Special considerations for acquisition work 219
9.3.1 Funding 219
9.3.2 Choosing a field site 220
9.3.3 Existing documentation 221
9.3.4 Ethical considerations 222
9.3.5 Gender of researcher 223
9.3.6 Health considerations 223
9.3.7 Recruitment of project team 224
9.4 Methods in acquisition research 225
9.4.1 Creating a longitudinal corpus 225
9.4.1.1 How many children? 226
9.4.1.2 What age to start recording at? 227
