30.631, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; History of Linguistics: Sarvasy, Forker (2018)

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Subject: 30.631, Review: Anthropological Linguistics; History of Linguistics: Sarvasy, Forker (2018)

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Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 11:14:51
From: John Powell [jwpowell at email.arizona.edu]
Subject: Word Hunters

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-1363.html

EDITOR: Hannah  Sarvasy
EDITOR: Diana  Forker
TITLE: Word Hunters
SUBTITLE: Field linguists on fieldwork
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Language Companion Series 194
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: John Warren William Powell, University of Arizona

INTRODUCTION

This edited volume, Word Hunters (2018), provides a diverse array of
experiences, tips, and lessons learned from long-term field linguists. Edited
by Hannah Sarvasy and Diana Forker, the book is certainly helpful for
linguists both in the field and out. It is also a great resource when
exploring and evaluating the merits of various methodologies to fieldwork, as
showcasing a diversity of approaches was clearly an objective to the editors.
The contributors to the book provide their own first-hand accounts of what is
realistically entailed in language documentation in the field and their
experiences of living in the different language communities. The book is
devoted to all fieldworkers, the “unsung heroes of linguistics” (1). The
strengths of the book are the diversity of contexts, methodologies, aims, and
disciplines of the contributors discussing their experiences as fieldworkers
across the world, which include five continents and major regions ranging from
the circumpolar Arctic to Amazonia and from the Caucasus to Oceania.

Thirteen veteran field linguists pen the eleven chapters. The editors discuss
how the book’s aim is to focus on the methodology and not necessarily the
findings of their work, and the contributing authors largely follow that
suggestion. Some of their different approaches and disciplines include
anthropological linguistics, typology, historical linguistics, phonetics,
syntax, morphology, and sociolinguistics, ranging from various theoretical
orientations. They include both scholars who have worked with a community for
long periods of time, for a career in some cases, to those who have spent
relatively shorter times, even several hours with a language. Much of the book
is very practical, though it is certainly not a handbook for language
description and documentation nor even fieldwork. Instead it provides a very
real picture of what fieldwork can look like in an accessible fashion. By
presenting so many different accounts, the volume deconstructs preconceived
notions of fieldwork and indeed this is a sentiment echoed by many of the
contributors in their own experiences. 

This review first summarizes the chapters, not by the order in the book but
instead by theme: first, anthropological linguists, second, Africanists,
third, collective field trip methodologies, and fourth fieldworkers outside of
academia. Then, it provides an evaluation, first on debates on preference of
methodologies, second, on ethics, and lastly, cohesion.

SUMMARY

Lourens de Vries provides an anthropological take on his fieldwork with the
Awyu in Indonesian West Papua in the chapter, “The linguist as a demon and as
a human: Fieldwork in Greater Awyu communities of West Papua.” He analyzes the
intersection between language and place, including his own place in the Awyu
society, and its consequential intrusion, an analysis that is noticeably
absent from much of linguistic literature. The Awyu communities made room for
him, both physically in a high tree house, and sociologically, designating him
as an “after-death demon” (142), both a term for outsiders and a derivational
morpheme that modifies nouns relating to foreignness. Sociologically, his
place relates to the basic unit of Awyu society, dyads, or relationships
forged between two individuals. In the language, compounds are formed to
express these relationships, often forming over a shared experience. He
entered into linguist-consultant dyad relationships with many, some of which
have lasted a long time. He remarked that his long-term relationship with the
Awyu allowed for the observation of some forms that only emerged after
extended periods of time in the community. 

Whereas de Vries focuses on places, Alexandra Aikhenvald, in her fascinating
chapter “The magic of names: A fieldworker’s perspective” provides an
anthropological examination of what names mean to communities and explores the
links between identity and language. She first discusses her work with Tariana
(Arawak) in the Amazon. Names for people includes their Portuguese and kinship
names, nicknames, and sacred names, and Aikhenvald describes the cultural
processes for creating and inheriting names, including the ones she received.
Aikhenvald then discusses her experiences with Manambu, a Ndu language in
Papua New Guinea, where people have English, kinship, and village names.
Personal and clan names in Manambu are linked to power and wealth, including
land ownership, and the accumulation of names corresponds with prestige. Some
elders can remember thousands of names going back fourteen generations, a
knowledge employed during land disputes. For both communities, names connect
people and contain important cultural and societal information. Just as the
communities are concerned with language endangerment, there is a worry about
the loss of knowledge of names, particularly among the youth, a knowledge so
important to the communities.

Matthias Brenzinger also discusses names, this time as they apply to Khwe
places, during his decades of fieldwork in Africa. Place names includes
information about events and history important to the community. Even though
elders are able to recall thousands of places, including hundreds of trees,
this knowledge is disappearing among youth along with the language. Brenzinger
also provides a very interesting description of cardinal directions in Khwe.
There are no lexemes that directly map to North and South, as the community
views the world split into two halves, East and West, along the path of the
sun. In his chapter “Sharing thoughts, concepts and experiences: Fieldwork on
African languages,” Brenzinger also discusses his experiences with language
revitalization, including the work with the Mukogodo Maasai people, who had
lost Yaaku (East Cushitic) decades ago. What Yaaku anyone remembered was
limited to greetings and some phrases, though there are efforts to revive the
language. The language status for Luruuli-Lunyala, however, was more robust.
His work with their dictionary project included an impressive team
interviewing hosts of speakers who recorded interviews, speeches, songs, and
stories. Even though the language is not spoken by the youngest generation,
the community is engaged in a promising revitalization effort. 

G. Tucker Childs, in his chapter “Forty-plus years before the mast: My
experiences as a field linguist,” also discusses his work with languages in
Africa. The value of his chapter is that in exploring his experiences, he
writes about both the successes and the mistakes. New fieldworkers can learn
through his trials and errors, particularly the greatest lesson that he has to
teach, that many setbacks can be valuable moments for learning and growing.
Some of his greatest successes came from discovery occurring in some of the
most quotidian situations. Childs recounts an epiphany while working with
clicks in !Xóõ. He noticed that when walking away from a campsite, clicks
would fade according to a ranking of noisiness. Regarding mistakes, some were
unavoidable, like when he developed a severe rash from sap seeping down the
hammock from sawed off limbs. Others were more preventable, like when he
stored water in the same type of containers as kerosene and once mistook it
when attempting to quench his thirst. His experiences illustrate that it is
impossible to anticipate what the fieldwork will be like. Instead,
fieldworkers should be open-minded, adaptable, and flexible. 

The next two chapters are from authors who were trained in the Russian
collective fieldwork methodology of the late Aleksandr Kibrik, both offering
rich descriptions that may benefit graduate programs when evaluating
approaches to fieldwork training. Nina Dobrushina and Michael Daniel discuss
their atypical experiences with East Caucasian languages in the chapter “Field
linguistics in Daghestan: A very personal account.” During summers, Kibrik and
his students would turn empty high schools into highly structured fieldwork
camps to bring in consultants. Student pairs were responsible for their
primary and secondary projects, all contributing to the collective field
research. Advantages include the immense volume of documentation in a
relatively short duration of time that could leverage the brilliance of many
minds. Dobrushina and Daniel are unique because they are married and often
travel with their children into the field. With children, they must make
considerations for food, schedules, and living conditions, often sacrificing
time for either work or family; yet their kids make them fit better in the
communities. Lastly, the authors discuss the diverse multilingualism in
Daghestan, how it has declined, and the causes for language shift in the
region.

Like Dobrushina and Daniel, Nina Sumbatova, in her chapter “My fieldwork, from
Georgia to Guinea” also discusses being a student but also an organizer in
Russian collective field trips. As an organizer, the immense preparation
included selecting the language, contacting the community, drawing agreements,
and finding residences. Money for housing and transportation came from student
fees, some consultant fees from grants, and yet much still out-of-pocket. She
was responsible for the students’ physical needs including food, safety, and
health, in addition to education and research. All this would require so much
of her time and energy that little remained for her own research. She
eventually quit the fieldtrips and focused on individual research with
Tungusic languages in East Russia. The work had two objectives, to document
the endangered languages and observe how they become dormant. The languages
had few speakers and were not used in daily communication. Moreover, attrition
had become an issue for the speakers; they forgot common words and structures,
spoke hesitantly, and code-switched frequently. One of the languages, Oroch,
was nearly dormant when she began working with four rememberers, who did not
know many words nor could translate texts. The language became dormant several
years later when the rememberers had passed away.

Two chapters in the volume dealt extensively with comparative and historical
linguistics. Michael Fortescue, in his chapter, “Drinking of the iceberg:
Thirty years of fieldwork on Arctic languages” chronicles some of the
milestones of his work: publishing comparative dictionaries and historical
reconstructions of Eskimo and then Chukotka-Kamchatkan and discovering a
two-morpheme stage for child acquisition of polysynthetic languages parallel
to the two-word stage. He also provides descriptions about the extralinguistic
facets of his work, including a number of stories which are highly memorable.
While working in the Arctic, he describes how the construction of an American
base after WWII had forced the Inughuit community to find new hunting grounds.
Now, global warming continues to affect the ways of life and being in the
Inughuit community, with even more traditional hunting grounds disappearing.
Historically, the Inughuit would camp on the ice along with their dogs, but
the ice cannot support this traditional practice anymore. In another context,
the abysmal economy in Chukotka had affected Native communities following the
collapse of the Soviet Union. There were no rubles in the bank and electrical
power was intermittent. The native populations were particularly impacted,
having lost many of their reindeer and experiencing widespread depression. The
inclusion of this socio-political history helped contextualize his work within
the communities.

Robert Blust, in the chapter titled “Historical linguistics in the raw: My
life as diachronic fieldworker” chronicles some of his academic
accomplishments working on Austronesian languages. His scholarship unites
historical linguistics, phonetics, and fieldwork in order to solve some of the
evolutionary mysteries and describe genealogical classifications of languages.
For him, these grew together simultaneously, and he credits his findings on
historic phonology of Austronesian languages only being possible through
fieldwork. Blust describes the genesis of his fieldwork with a speaker of
Kelabit in Hawaii. From a simple elicitation of numbers, he discovered that
the language was typologically unique, featuring previously unattested voiced
aspirates. From here, major documentary projects emerged, culminating in
numerous grammars, comparative vocabularies, and a classification of Northern
Sarawak. He provides insight into how he conducted fieldwork with multilingual
students as a teacher in local high schools. During some of the fieldwork, he
would rely on interpreters, and his insights on working with them were some of
the more intriguing contributions of this chapter. Working with them involves
testing not only the target language, but also the interpretation, which
became even more complicated when working with double interpreters! 

Lastly, this review discusses the contributions from non-academics. Knut J.
Olawsky, a linguist employed by the Miriwoong community in Northwest
Australia, writes the chapter “Reflections on linguistic fieldwork between
Sahel, Amazon and Outback.” His voice of a linguist affiliated with a
community is critical. In his current position, instead of the linguist
directing the fieldwork, documentation and revitalization is community-driven.
His chapter, the most practical of all of the chapters, provides advice on
best practices. Olawsky describes how he finds the right consultant for each
component of documentation representing various demographics, much like
Thomason (2015), who discusses discovering the talents each consultant
possesses. For example, with a Urarina in the Amazon, he worked with the chief
who could speak Spanish but did not consider himself a skilled storyteller.
So, the chief recommended a storyteller, but the storyteller could not speak
Spanish. Not only was the chief’s recommendation helpful, but the chief could
interpret for Olawsky in the sessions and during transcription. Nevertheless,
he endeavored to speak the languages himself, which was viewed positively by
the communities, allowing him to communicate and bond with people, immerse
himself in the language, and conduct some of the work without an interpreter. 

Finally, Mary Ruth Wise, in her chapter “From here to there and back again:
Fieldwork in the Andean foothills” discusses her experiences while working for
the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Coupling the scientific
investigation of language with evangelical aims, Wise reflects on her time
with Peruvian communities, bookended by her fieldwork with the Yánesha’. For
them, colonization continues to endanger the people and their culture, with
the youth shifting to monolingual Spanish. Even so, the Yánesha’ orthography
is taught in the schools and literacy in Yánesha’ is high (around 90%).
Nevertheless, the former orthography had issues with old fonts that would no
longer render correctly on word processors and Wise’s last task was to produce
an orthography typeable on a Spanish keyboard. She researched many other
aspects of the language including reference tracking in texts, influence from
Quechua, including loans, roots, and mythology, and historical movement of the
Yánesha’ people. 

EVALUATION

Throughout the volume, there was a stimulating debate on the preference of
elicitation, observation, and corpora methodologies, a debate that is
well-known in the literature and is often tied to theoretical approaches.
Sumbatova, for example, found that elicitation was oftentimes advantageous
over corpus data. She remarks that with corpora, one is simply given data, but
with elicitation, one could obtain data relevant to the research. Yet,
eliciting words was not always straightforward. In the first chapter, “Word
hunters: Unsung heroes of linguistics,” Hannah Sarvasy discusses using
nonverbal techniques, like mime, to elicit forms in Kim and Bom in Sierra
Leone. Similarly, Sumbatova, while working with Landuma (Mel family) in West
Africa, used nonverbal techniques such as pictures, gestures, and actions.
While frustrated at first, she notes that within a couple weeks, the
communication had improved significantly. 

On the other hand, some fieldworkers felt strongly about observation
methodologies. When discussing “immersion fieldwork” (10), Aikhenvald
considered the observation of quotidian use of language to be vital,
especially in spontaneous contexts. For her, text corpora were not enough, and
participant-observation was essential for increasing the quality of the
language grammar. Only through immersion fieldwork could some forms emerge.
Similarly, Brenzinger stressed the importance of accompanying consultants in
their work as it was in these situations that he was able to record specific
terminologies, stories, folklore, and lexemes.

While many of the linguists sought to minimize their role in society,
particularly among the anthropological linguists, observation was not a
passive experience. Sometimes, the linguists themselves became catalysts for
new words that otherwise would not necessarily emerge naturally in speech.
Aikhenvald, for instance, discusses how she developed a cough for a month in
Papua New Guinea and was able to learn an immense amount of language related
to diseases during that time. Such challenges were often setbacks, but also
opportunities for learning. For example, Childs became lost while traveling to
a Kisi town. When he was able to find the town, he accidentally crossed a
cultural line by entering the wrong side. While at first, he was going to be
banished, the elders reconvened and decided instead to celebrate him. The
lesson that he learned is valuable, that because he erred, he was exposed to a
part of culture and language that otherwise may not have been available by
typical observation.

Even among those who prefer observation, they would still use various
methodologies, which often depended on the specific items under investigation.
Generally, Olawsky found elicitation to be a mixed bag. While elicitation
allows him to control for variables, it often risks arriving at unnatural
speech, a phenomenon recognized by any fieldworker. Hypotheticals, for
instance, often frustrated his consultants. Moreover, he found it preferable
to use actual physical and natural stimuli, even if it required traveling, as
opposed to flat graphical representations, which he considered to be sometimes
unhelpful. Even though Olawsky preferred texts, he acknowledged that some
forms only emerge via elicitation, and especially saw value in semi-structured
elicitation. Like Olawsky, some authors concluded that both are helpful, but
often for different purposes. For example, de Vries considers that while
grammar and lexica are both important parts of language fieldwork, texts have
a special role as they can falsify the description. They also provide rich
data on oral tradition and culture. 

There was also some important discussion about fieldwork ethics. Many of the
chapters incorporate aspects of social justice and ethics into the discussion
of the area of field linguistics, particularly as it applies to the
revitalization of endangered languages. For Brenzinger, ethical collaborations
include supporting language maintenance, such as developing pedagogical
materials or orthographies. This privileges the community’s interests and
rights but also reinforces sustainable capacity building. Olawsky echoes this
sentiment and adds that, in addition to paying consultants cash or goods for
their time, fieldwork should include giving back to the community, like
dictionaries. He also argues that the recordings and material that emerges
from the work should be property of the community itself.

There were many reoccurring themes relating to the experiences of the
contributors of this volume. The authors of the volume discuss many of the
difficulties and sacrifices involved with fieldwork, which encompass
“physical, intellectual, interpersonal, intercultural, […] political” (1) and
financial challenges. These include leaving loved ones behind and adapting to
a new way of life which sometimes lacked conveniences like running water and
electricity. Animals, insects, diseases, and local conflicts presented dangers
in the work for some. For example, Brenzinger discusses his work taking place
near guerrilla zones or sleeping next to camp fires where dangerous animals
posed threats. Likewise, Sumbatova was conducting fieldwork, first on Svan
when conflict broke out between the Abkhazians and the Georgians, and later on
Itsari when the KGB attempted a coup against Gorbachev. Exhibiting exceptional
vulnerability, Childs talks about how he suffered from malaria and experienced
burglary, but tragedy hit him most acutely when his own child passed away.

What brought each of the authors into the field also varied greatly, and
ranged from studying music, other languages, internships, meeting diaspora of
the language, and even the Peace Corps. While the paths varied, their
experiences, particularly within the field, garnered an immense interest for
each of them. Yet the authors cited common themes of why they kept coming back
to fieldwork. Some of it had to do with the scientific process, including
uncovering raw unanalyzed data, finding the patterns, solving each of the
challenging puzzles, generating creative solutions for the problems, and the
climactic eureka moment that comes with discovery, and then doing it all over.
Moreover, many of them were drawn to interaction with the speakers, learning
the languages, and immersing themselves in the cultures. Outside of the
language, the authors discuss traveling to new places around the world,
embracing the diversity of the people, appreciating the natural beauty of the
area, and living different ways of life. However, a common theme for the
authors was that it was the people that they met and grew to love that
continued to bring them back to the field.

The book’s coherence comes from its sheer diversity, which is metaphoric of
fieldwork itself. No two chapters are alike, and this is a strength from a
book which provides a panorama of experiences, locations, methodologies,
disciplines, and approaches to fieldwork. This means that the book can be
enjoyed as a whole, but that each of the chapters can be appreciated
individually. In this, the editors achieved their goals of presenting a very
diverse area of field linguistics. The fieldworkers and their experiences are
as diverse as the languages, places, and peoples with whom they work, and the
book provides important insight into the multidisciplinary nature of the work
itself. 

REFERENCES

Thomason, Sarah G. 2015. Endangered Languages: An Introduction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

John W. W. Powell is a PhD student of Linguistics and University Fellow at the
University of Arizona. His research interest are in syntax, historical
linguistics, language documentation, revitalization, and maintenance of
Indigenous languages. For his dissertation, he is researching comparative and
historical Yuman syntax. He works with the Piipaash (Maricopa) community. He
has a MA in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Arizona State University.





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