Sign language 'fieldwork'

[Nancy Frishberg]

0. I'm so out of it - or so American - I didn't know about the other discussion list at SLLS.eu. To join that list must I join the SLLS, while for this list I'm in for free? Or did I overlook access to the discussion without paid membership? I'm sure it's valuable, but my daytime job these days requires a whole slew of other professional fees (ACM.org, UsabilityProfessionals.org, etc.), and I'm feeling tapped out.

1. Responding to the question Adam put to us, and various people have been answering, I was delighted to get my first "real" job, at NTID in Rochester, because I was living and working among 550 young adults who had grown up deaf, roughly half of whom signed. There was a larger concentration of deaf with deaf adults in their lives than I had met in my previous experiences at UCSD. I used to host Sunday night suppers occasionally at my apartment, and because the cafeteria was closed, I had good response to the invitation. I was often the only hearing person among a dozen or more people in a casual setting. I was not much different in age from the deaf students, and my daytime job didn't involve being their instructor or therapist, despite my status as "faculty." I could sort-of sign when I got there, but improved a lot, in part because of the full immersion. I got hazed, much like the deaf students who were raised in oral environments. And there were plenty of simultaneous conversations, of which I could (then) track only parts of 1 or 2. Sure felt like fieldwork to me. And, that's how I describe it to people.

2. In response to Franz Dotter's comment: from the earliest days at Salk Institute with Bellugi and Klima, where we had deaf colleagues and consultants regularly, we always congratulated ourselves and them, when they responded to our questions with "There are several ways to sign that." Oh goody! Ambiguity, near-synonymy, cultural insights, or something else wonderful is coming our way.

3. What counts as fieldwork? A similar discussion about fieldwork [in non-academic settings] has been going on in another discussion list I'm part of (for my more recent path in [digital] user experience). On that list (yahoo group "anthrodesign"), the practicing anthropologists are explaining to themselves that brief fieldwork experiences (rather than the customary 1 full year cycle) can count as fieldwork. We doubt ourselves because of the traditions of the academy, not on account of the quality of the data we collect, nor the patterns we find, nor the meanings and interpretations we can make. There may be something in Sam Ladner's 2-part article at http://ethnographymatters.net that sheds light on this discussion. Or not. You tell me.

Greetings to all from the driest winter in years, on the ranch in Livermore CA. Come see us.

 - Nancy


On Feb 1, 2012, at 9:03 PM, Adam Schembri wrote:

> Hello SLLING-L and SLLS list members,
> 
> Recently, a language documentation colleague asked me why there were so few sign language researchers conducting 'fieldwork'. She was reasonably well-informed about the field, and could name a few sign language linguists who were collecting data from micro-community/ 'village' sign language communities (e.g., in Bali), or from macro-community sign language communities in developing countries (e.g., Uganda), and identified them as doing sign language 'fieldwork'. 
> 
> I could see her point, but I thought this was an interesting perspective, because (without wanting to diminish the challenges of those who work on sign languages in places like Bali and Uganda), I have always considered myself an 'urban fieldworker' working on the sign language varieties cities in Australia and the UK. I read the definition below, and I feel that the Auslan and BSL corpus projects I have worked on do (more or less) fit the bill:
> 
> Bowern (2008:7) “…what is ‘fieldwork’? My definition is rather broad. It involves the collection of accurate data in an ethical manner. It involves producing a result which both the community and the linguist approve of. That is, the ‘community’ (the people who are affected by your being there collecting data) should know why you’re there, what you’re doing, and they should be comfortable with the methodology and the outcome. You should also be satisfied with the arrangements. The third component involves the linguist interacting with a community of speakers at some level. That is, fieldwork involves doing research in a place where the language is spoken, not finding a speaker at your university and eliciting data from them". 
> 
> What do others think? Are many more of us 'fieldworkers' in Bowern's sense than our colleagues realise?
> 
> Cheers,
> Adam
> 
> 
> -- 
> Assoc. Prof. Adam Schembri, PhD
> Director | National Institute for Deaf Studies and Sign Language
> La Trobe University | Melbourne (Bundoora) | Victoria |  3086 |  Australia
> Tel: +61 3 9479 2887 | Fax: +61 3 9479 3074 |http://www.adamschembri.net/webpage/Welcome.html
> 

Nancy Frishberg +1 650 804 5800 mobile
nancyf at fishbird.com
Twitter: @nancyf
Blog: www.fishbird.com

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