Research Methods in Linguistics

Introduction

There are two exciting facets of language description: the fieldwork experience, which is necessary for data collection, and the process of discovery and analysis that leads to the description of the target language. In order for our record of language structures to be as accurate as possible, data collection is best conducted using rigorous methodology. The goal of language description is often not to capture just one speaker’s internal grammar but to represent prevalent patterns for a community of speakers. In that sense, grammatical description is “fake” in that no one speaker will instantiate all the structures described in the grammar; at the same time, however, the grammar is “real” because the facts described therein are accepted by most speakers as accurately representing their language. The main product of descriptive fieldwork, whether a grammar or a targeted description of particular parts of a grammar, must therefore include data from a variety of speakers, favoring the most frequent patterns and noting common variations based on social or contextual factors.

Speakers and fieldworkers

A typical fieldwork project requires the participation of several speakers, in part due to differing talents and interests. The primary consultants, the speakers who participate on a regular basis in a project, will be those who are excited by language study. Some speakers show an amazing amount of linguistic sophistication even without linguistic training; for example, even if a speaker is unable to explain word class membership using terms such as “verb” and “noun,” she might still identify the lexical category of a word by providing paradigms or synonyms (Dixon 1992). Some speakers show initiative by bringing their own analyses to field sessions or by asking community members for their opinions on constructions discussed with the field linguist. Some speakers may be good storytellers, others able to repeat things slowly and exactly to aid with transcription (a surprisingly difficult task; see Chapter 12). Some speakers may be ideal for recording conversations and narratives but may be too prescriptive to help with translation (they may be more interested in “correcting” data than commenting on it).