To the Field, and Back…

Abstract

In this chapter, I offer a critique of linguistic field methodology, exploring the contribution that a participant-driven approach to data collection can make to language documentation and description. Bringing together material from linguistic field manuals, project documentation, hand-written field notes, and reflexive accounts of my field experiences, I trace my journey into the field, and through the process of collecting language data for the eventual production of a grammatical description. I establish that the basic field methodology advocated by linguists has traditionally involved tightly structured interviewing (known as “elicitation”). At the same time, I point to a literature in which this methodology is critiqued. While experienced fieldworkers no doubt employ multiple methodologies in the field, novice fieldworkers are encouraged to focus on their research goals. This can mean that elicitation sessions typically become the only way in which fieldwork is carried out.Drawing on my own experiences in the field, I demonstrate that linguistic fieldwork can combine ethnographic participation/observation methodology with community-driven text collection, and context-rich techniques of elicitation. This layered methodology prioritises people and social participation over the goals of academic research. It allows the research record to be shaped by the community, thus permitting the researcher to experience and seek understandings of the symbolic system of language from the perspective of the community. In my experience, such a methodology enhances the sustainability of the field project from both community and researcher perspectives. Crucially, it creates a context in which it is more likely that the linguist will be invited to return to the field and contribute in an ongoing way to a community, on their terms.

Citation

Barbour, J. (2013), "To the Field, and Back…", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) 40th Anniversary of Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 40), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 247-268. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2013)0000040014