[Lingtyp] language documentation, language learning, & participant

[Hannah Sarvasy]

Dear Adam and others,

As many here would know, there are scattered general discussions and anecdotes about the benefits and challenges of language learning during linguistic fieldwork in a number of field methods guides (if memory serves, for instance, Everett's claims that this will add six months to one's research...) and edited volumes on fieldwork (e.g. Newman & Ratliff 2001, Ameka, Dench & Evans 2006, and Sarvasy & Forker 2018). Speaking of which, if anyone needs access to Diana Forker and my 2018 volume Word Hunters: Field Linguists on Fieldwork, which includes 10 'fieldwork autobiographies' by preeminent field linguists, let me know. We've been trying to get Benjamins to choose it for Open Access status for years without success. (It includes chapters by the late Robert Blust and G. Tucker Childs, among others.)

My 2016 CLS Proceedings paper on the benefits of language learning/monolingual fieldwork, both in the field and in the Field Methods classroom, also has a number of references and anecdotes from fieldworkers:
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/5b6c3bf2-c405-4b65-85a3-e9a0799a14aa/content

Lev Michael's 2008 thesis on 'Nanti evidential practice' notes that he used a monolingual method, and my own 2015 thesis, 'A Grammar of Nungon,' also stems from monolingual fieldwork.

You may also be interested in a 2020 overview of the history of monolingual fieldwork in the U.S. tradition:

Thomas, Margaret. 2020. The monolingual approach in American linguistic fieldwork. Historiographia Linguistica, 47(2-3), 266-302.

Last, here's an old blog post about an insight gleaned from in situ observation of language in use:
https://brilllinguisticsblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/on-the-importance-of-in-situ-linguistic-observation/

Best,
Hannah Sarvasy


Senior Researcher
The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development
Western Sydney University
https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/marcs/about/our_people/researchers/dr_hannah_sarvasy

https://dkb.research.pdx.edu/









Here's an old blog post about the importance of in situ observation for comprehensive language description:

https://brilllinguisticsblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/on-the-importance-of-in-situ-linguistic-observation/

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