On fieldwork

[Allan Wechsler]

    [Tom Payne:]

        I would like to mention Ken Hale and Colette Grinevald as
	    fieldworkers I have known who seem to have approached these
	        presumed conflicting motivations in this kind of a way.

		I second the praise of Ken Hale in this respect.  In Hale we
		have a
		highly-respected scholar, working in the heartland of abstract
		linguistic theory, retaining a deep heartfelt love for primary
		data,
		for the activity of fieldwork, for endangered languages, and
		for their
		speakers.  Although I have only moved through the outermost
		fringes of
		Hale's circle, it is impossible to miss his message that
		fieldwork is
		a sacrament, the central enabling activity of linguistics, and
		that it
		must be done with love, love both for _language_ and for
		_people_.
		Hale's students carry that message all over the world: to the
		American
		Southwest, to Australia, to Central America.

-A

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