Linguistics Fieldwork at Stanford University
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Information: When You Return
before you leave when you're there after you're back

Maintaining Contacts

There are many reasons for maintaining contact with your informants and friends after you've left the field. First, you never know what questions will come up in the process of your data analysis; some very crucial problems can only be solved through a re-consultation with your informant. Second, it's in your best interest to maintain links in case of a potential follow-up trip, even if that option doesn't seem likely when you first get back. Third, it's the most ethical decision to give back what you can to the community that gave you so much (your dissertation data, for instance?); even if you're not writing a new grammar of the community's language, some informants may love to see the final write-up of the data. And finally, in many cases, a good fieldworker will become so much a part of their community of study that they can't help but maintain ties with their informants, out of friendship.

 Contents

Data organization

Grammar writing

A good grammar should be presented clearly, with comprehensive coverage of the linguistic phenomena. Make sure you illustrate your descriptions with multiple examples (from texts where possible) and use clear terminology (include any alternate names by which they may be known). Cross reference related phenomena in the grammar, and provide standard interlinear glossing and translation.

Here are some links to conventions for interlinear morpheme-by-morpheme glosses:

There are various available guides to good descriptive grammar writing. This is a useful comparative study by Jeff Good (University of Pittsburgh and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) of traditional descriptive grammar writing, based on a survey of four printed grammars:

The DOBES recommendations on language documentation is also a useful site:

Further descriptive grammar writing references include:

Bickford, J. A. Tools for Analyzing the World's Languages: Morphology and Syntax. Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998.

Comrie, Bernard, William Croft, Christian Lehmann, and Dietmar Zaefferer, 1995. A Framework for descriptive grammars. Bernard Crochetiere et. al (eds.), Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Linguistics, vol. 1. Quebec City.

Payne, T. E. 1997. Describing Morphosyntax. A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Texts

Identify and tag texts with:

  • Language
  • Narrator
  • Date recorded, transcribed, translated
  • Transcriber, translator

Interlinear glossing:

  • First line: contains the original language with morpheme boundaries identified
  • Second line: morpheme by morpheme translation in alignment with the morphemes of the first line
  • Third line: a more natural translation

Dictionaries

Entries should include:

  • Phonological form of lexical item
  • Morphological composition
  • Glossing
  • Source (name of consultant or original text)
  • Date recorded and entered into database
  • Part of speech
  • Lexical cross-referencing
  • Any historical observations
  • Sociolinguistic and cultural notes
  • Example sentences — to illustrate use in context

The best software at the moment for dictionary work is Shoebox.

Dictionary writing references

Ulrike Mosel (Universität Kiel). Dictionary making in endangered speech communities. http://www.mpi.nl/lrec/papers/lrec-pap-07-Dictionary_Endangered_SpComm.pdf (A paper addressing various issues related to lexicographic work in short-term language documentation projects).

Pawley, Andrew K. Grammarian's lexicon, lexicographer's lexicon: Worlds apart. In Svartvik, Jan(ed.) Words KVHAA Konferenser 36 (pp. 189-211). Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien.

Software and field linguistics tools

http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/research/lt/projects/acla-db/
The ACLA-DB is a linguistic database application designed for structured metadata creation and data management.

Talkbank: Linguistic Annotation
Describes tools and formats for creating and managing descriptive or analytic notations for language data.

Shoebox
Download site for Shoebox, a data management and analysis tool for the field linguist.

http://www.sil.org/computing/routledge/antworth-valentine/
Software for doing field linguistics

http://fieldling.sourceforge.net/
Tools for field linguists

Claude Barras' Transcriber
(to transcribe and to link your media and transcript).

http://www.mpi.nl/tools/elan.html
Software produced by the MPI in the Netherlands for transcribing both audio and video.
This page is written and maintained by the student members of the Stanford Fieldwork Committee.