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<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2> Can
anyone recommend some good basic introductory linguistic materials that might
help community-based language-teaching staff in making sense of both the
descriptive linguistic materials on their languages, and/or enable them to carry
out descriptive documentary/pedagogical research? For example, the book
Bilingual dictionaries for indigenous languages by Doris Bartholomew and Louise
Schoenhals provides lots of excellent information on making bilingual
dictionaries, though sadly, I get the impression that it's out of print, and it
is in some ways limited by its heavy emphasis on Spanish as glossing language
(though this is of course a strength in some places). It properly stresses the
importance of example sentences, e.g., something usually overlooked in
traditional bilingual dictionaries done in North America. But what about
grammar? There are quite decent guides for those (linguists) seeking to do
documentary work, such as Thomas Payne's Describing morphosyntax: a guide for
field linguists (Cambridge 1997), and the Lingua descriptive studies:
questionnaire (Comrie, Bernard and Norval Smith. 1977. Lingua 42.1-72). Both of
these works require extensive linguistic knowledge to use, however (esp. Comrie
and Smith), and neither addresses linguistic documentation centrally in the
functional terms that would seem most useful to pedagogical/documentary
applications. For example, the kind of resource I'm thinking of would include
discussion of the fundamental differences between statements, questions, and
commands, since these have immense functional importance in actually using
language, and are often coded grammatically in particular ways (though both
sources cited above do address these, as I recall). It would include a
discussion of basic phonology, e.g., the phoneme principle, allophony, stress,
and common (natural) processes such as devoicing and palatalization; it would
include an overview of inflectional and derivational morphology, and how to go
about carrying out analysis. It would address lexicographical principles and
techniques. It would include notes on text documenation, etc., on and on, the
sky's the limit. It would include an extensive glossary of basic linguistic
terms, clearly described. It might also address the relationship of
documentation, reference materials, curriculum and pedagogy. I'm looking for
a kind of descriptive cookbook, with discussion of common ingredients and
techniques and how they relate to teaching and learning a second language (or
even first!).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2> Last summer I
taught a course in introductory linguistics at a summer session in Lakehead
University (Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada), in which my students were Ojibwe
speaking language teachers. I used O'Grady and Archibald, a good introductory
linguistics text for regular university teaching, but its emphasis on generative
grammar profoundly limits its applicability to documentary projects, and in the
class you end up spending inordinate amounts of time talking about abstract
principles (and parameters). What is the best introductory linguistics text for
non-linguists, covering all the basics? Is there not something general written
for language teachers who are not linguists?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2> So I
guess I'm asking several questions: 1. Are there any good accessible
introductions to basic descriptive linguistics that can be understood and
applied by non-linguists (introducing phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse,
dialectology, sociolinguistics, language and culture, etc.). 2. Are there any
good books to outline in accessible terms the functional/formal documentation
that would serve as the foundation for an indigenous language community's
efforts to document, preserve, and promote its language? If not, maybe we could
work as a communbity to develop a web resource of this sort.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2> My
apologies for the length of this note, and please forgive my ignorance. In a
way, writing this note I begin to answer my own questions.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2>Rand
Valentine</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=080235012-13052001><FONT face=Arial size=2>U of
Wisconsin-Madison</FONT></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>