33.2867, Review: Anthropological Linguistics: Perrino, Pritzker (2022)

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Subject: 33.2867, Review: Anthropological Linguistics: Perrino, Pritzker (2022)

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Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2022 21:06:04
From: Marie Rickert [m.rickert at maastrichtuniversity.nl]
Subject: Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/33/33-670.html

EDITOR: Sabina M. Perrino
EDITOR: Sonya E. Pritzker
TITLE: Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Marie Rickert, Maastricht University

SUMMARY

“Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology”, edited by Sabina M. Perrino and
Sonya E. Pritzker is the first textbook solely dedicated to methods in the
discipline of Linguistic Anthropology. It presents researchers and students
with a detailed introduction to different methods and pays particular
attention to practical and ethical considerations. The book includes a variety
of examples from different research areas.

The collection contains 12 chapters authored by linguistic anthropologists
with diverse research interests, covering the whole research process. While
the first chapters revolve around key issues like creating research questions
and planning fieldwork, the chapters in the middle zoom in on distinct
methods. Analysis, mixed methods and grant writing are discussed in dedicated
chapters toward the end of the book. Each chapter contains a section on
ethnographic activities, questions to consider and references to further
reading which encourage deeper engagement with the topic.

“Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology” begins with an introduction by
the editors who make a case for the urgency of the book. Sabina M. Perrino and
Sonya E. Pritzker argue that students and researchers will benefit from a
comprehensive overview of the methodological repertoire of the discipline in
one collection. An outlook on the contributions which, according to them, are
united in highlighting flexibility while simultaneously keeping key
anthropological tenets as a solid methodological base. 

The first chapter entitled “Navigating topics and creating research questions
in Linguistic Anthropology” (Farzad Karimzad and Lydia Catedral) discusses the
beginnings and foundations of research projects. The authors draw on
Silverstein’s conceptualization of the pragmatics-metapragmatics-nexus
(Silverstein 1993) which takes into account language practices and the
interrelations with their mediating ideologies to situate linguistic
anthropological knowledge production. The authors then discuss coming up with
a research focus as a process which entails forms of categorization and
zooming in and out on different scales (see Blommaert 2015) as well as
attributing topical salience in order to develop a flexible research question.
The case study provides insights into the author’s own journey of situating
their research and crafting their research questions in a project around
discourse, technology, and migration (Karimzad & Catedral 2018).

The next contribution “Reviewing the literature in Linguistic Anthropology”,
written by Justin B. Richland, presents key strategies in conducting
literature reviews. The author describes the search on platforms which publish
annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, as well as other databases,
but also suggests library-based research strategies. Richland pays particular
attention to the open-ended character of anthropological fieldwork. He
discusses how to approach reviewing the literature in this light and suggests
including literature reviews as an integral part of the research process which
links the topic and field site to wider discussions in the field of Linguistic
Anthropology.

Continuing along the trajectory of the research process, the next chapter
(Deborah A. Jones and Ilana Gershon) deals with the concrete planning of
fieldwork. The authors recommend holding on to the important questions ‘Who?’,
‘Where?’ and ‘How?’ for planning data collection but also for adapting as the
unexpectedness of the field unfolds. Besides such general considerations, the
chapter provides details on the planning of practicalities (e.g., technical,
medical, postal, financial, professional, personal). The authors conclude
that, even though anthropological research cannot be foreseen, “good research
isn’t random” but “the key to sparkling and surprising ethnography is (…) good
planning (p.93).

While ethics are considered and discussed in each chapter of the book, Chapter
4 entitled “Care as methodological stance: Research ethics in linguistic
anthropology” is solely dedicated to ethical issues. The authors Steven P.
Black and Robin Conley Riner conceptualize ethics from a care perspective
(drawing on, e.g. Taylor et al. 2012), which challenges researcher/participant
dichotomies and highlights personal and institutional interconnections. Black
and Riner go on to central ethical matters such as sexual harassment and
discrimination. Issues like confidentiality and anonymity are discussed
drawing on examples from the author’s research projects in the US and South
Africa.

Getting more concrete regarding specific methods, Chapter 5, authored by Sonya
E. Pritzker and Sabina M. Perrino discusses the classical anthropological
methods of participant observation and the crafting of fieldnotes. The authors
give a practical overview of different types of fieldnotes (e.g., headnotes
(Sanjek, 1990), logs, diaries, method notes, analytic notes) and explain
different ways to organize and analyse them. Furthermore, they discuss the
role of participant observation and fieldnotes in linguistic anthropological
research designs where they often go together with, e.g., audio- and
video-recorded data. The authors argue that fielnotes are nevertheless
indispensable due to the experientiality and relationality of anthropological
knowledge production. Pritzker’s example of how she arrived to her field site
in Beijing and was told that she would no longer be allowed to make any
recordings but only to participate in workshops underscores once more how
crucial it is to be able to rely on classical tools like participant
observation and fieldnotes.

Chapter 6, written by Sabina M. Perrino, goes on to discuss another key
method: interviews. Perrino conceptualizes these as situated speech events
where not only the content but also the interactional dynamics during the
interview can be insightful for the research process. Examples from her
research in Senegal and Northern Italy are used to discuss the role of
intimacy and relationship building in the context of interviewing.

The next chapter is entitled “Audio-video technology for and in the field: A
primer” (Gregory Kohler and Keith M. Murphy). The chapter covers
methodological questions like the selection of events which will be recorded,
ethical concerns like privacy as well as very practical matters, e.g., which
equipment to use to yield data of high quality. In addition, Kohler and Murphy
give an historical overview of how video came to the field, starting with
ethnographic recordings conducted by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.

Chapter 8 (Teruko Vida Mitsuhara and Jan David Hauck) elaborates the technical
details of video ethnography. It provides a detailed guide to conducting video
recordings, with steps to consider before, during, and after data collection.
The chapter shows that video ethnography requires much more than filming,
namely also aspects like familiarizing yourself with the equipment, creating a
videographer identity in the field, establishing consent as an ongoing process
and creating a database.

Chapter 9 is dedicated to transcription and analysis in Linguistic
Anthropology (Merav Shohet and Heather Loyd). Logically following up on prior
chapters on data collection, this chapter considers “what to do with the data
collected” (p. 261). The authors depict transcription, including the question
what to transcribe, as the first step of analysis. They describe transcribing
and analyzing as “bricolage works that are never complete, and always
collaborative and redolent with the residues (…) contributions of others” (p.
288). Therefore, as the authors suggest, analysis, including transcribing and
coding, is a recursive process which entails continuous interpretation and
reinterpretation. The chapter includes examples of different forms of
transcripts, e.g., multi-modal (Goodwin et al. 2012), audio-recorded data with
bolded analytical interest, and translated, multilingual transcript annotated
with participant’s rhetorical strategies.

In Chapter 10, Archie Crowley and Elaine Chun discuss online research and new
media, a research environment that many linguistic anthropologists have turned
to in the context of the COVID-19-pandemic. The authors argue that
sociocultural questions as well as semiotic and metadiscursive questions can
be addressed through online research, which requires rethinking key concepts
like language, interaction, community, identity and ethnography itself. They
provide guidance to data collection and analysis, encouraging researchers to
maintain a reflexive lens. The case study of the chapter deals with discursive
practices of transgender communities online in the context of marginalization.

Chapter 11 (Sonya E. Pritzker) turns toward mixed methods, recognizing that
linguistic anthropologists increasingly collaborate with researchers from
other disciplines in interdisciplinary projects and also deploy mixed methods
themselves. Drawing on Fetters et al’s guidelines for mixing methods (2013),
Pritzker discusses processes and challenges in designing and carrying out
mixed methods projects, specifically those which integrate qualitative and
quantitative data.

The closing chapter, entitled “Grant Writing for Projects in Linguistic
Anthropology” and authored by Sonia N. Das, provides reflections and practical
advice on grant writing. Using examples of her own successful grants, Das
provides insights into the development of a coherent design including research
questions, hypotheses, data collection, management, and analysis as well as
considerations of the intellectual merit and broader significance. Like in all
chapters of the volume, ethics are also discussed in-depth.

EVALUATION

‘Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology’ offers a much needed and
valuable collection of reflections on methods as well as practical guidelines
for planning and carrying out research projects in linguistic anthropology.
While many handbooks from neighbouring (e.g. sociolinguistics) or umbrella
(e.g. anthropology) disciplines touch upon linguistic anthropology and its
methods, this is the first volume to solely focus on methods in the
sub-discipline from beginning to end. 

The book holistically discusses a variety of methods which linguistic
anthropologists deploy, always paying attention to the particular perspectives
and approaches of the field and, thereby, delineating linguistic anthropology
from neighbouring disciplines. Each author foregrounds, in their own way, the
combination of methodological flexibility and academic rigour needed for a
successful planning and carrying out of fieldwork as well as for the analysis
of the gathered data. The case studies provide interesting insights into
practical research processes, openly presenting challenges that might arise
regarding particular methods during planning, fieldwork and analysis, and
examples of how to deal with them. The variety of topics and field sites shows
how the methods discussed in this volume are applied across diverse contexts
which are all shaped by interconnections of culture and linguistic and
discursive processes. The editors make clear that the book particularly covers
more traditional and core novel methods in linguistic anthropology while
linguistic anthropology is a dynamically evolving field. Perrino and Pritzker
mention applied linguistic anthropology, sociophonetics and the integration of
quantitative and qualitative methods as venues which the book can only attend
to in a limited way. Also novel research approaches like posthumanist or
multispecies ethnography (Cornips 2022) are not explicitly discussed as the
book focuses on core methods. 

The editors succeeded in creating coherency by presenting a line-up of
chapters which logically follow up on each other, starting with the creation
of research questions and preparations for fieldwork, moving on to concrete
methods and ending with topics which integrate the elements discussed in the
previous chapters, i.e., mixed methods and grant writing. The last chapter on
grant writing is especially worth mentioning as it covers a topic which is not
often transparently discussed in academic writing. The chapter gives helpful
and concrete advice and provides examples from successful grants of linguistic
anthropological projects. 

Each of the chapters in ‘Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology’ includes
considerations of practicalities regarding the method discussed, of ethics,
and of additional ethnographic activities and further reading. While the
chapters are generally balanced, audio- and video methods receive slightly
more attention than other methods as they are discussed in-depth in two
chapters. However, both chapters take a different angle, focusing on either
general considerations or technical details and thereby clearly create an
added value. 

As suggested by the editors, the volume addresses both experienced and new
researchers. Students and junior researchers will particularly benefit from
the ways in which basic tenets of methods which often remain implicit are made
explicit throughout the chapters. How to conduct a literature review, for
example, is elsewhere commonly not spelled out beyond the advice to read and
summarise what has been read. Richland, in his contribution to the volume,
mentions different approaches and does so explicitly for linguistic
anthropology by, e.g., suggesting suitable databases. 

The high amount of detail and practical guidance to different methods across
the chapters makes the book a rich resource for teaching. The ethnographic
activities and questions to consider suggested at the end of each chapter can
be used both in classrooms and as individual assignments for familiarisation
with the methods. For their own preparation of fieldwork, more experienced
researchers might not always need this much detail in practical advice.
However, the volume likewise offers them many conceptual issues to
(re-)consider and presents a wide variety of methods, some of which, e.g.,
online methods, might be new to more experienced researchers. In addition, the
book takes into account the dynamic development of technologies and provides
up-to-date advice as well as advice on how to stay up-to-date.

In sum, the volume successfully achieves its aim to provide a comprehensive
collection which can guide researchers at all stages in the field of
Linguistic Anthropology  through the research process. Highly interesting
contributions carefully consider practical, ethical and conceptual questions
and help readers with the methodological aspects of their research projects.
“Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology” certainly has the potential to
help many researchers with their research design and thorough execution of
research projects. 

REFERENCES

Blommaert, J. (2015). Chronotopes, scales, and complexity in the study of
language in society. Annual Review of Anthropology, 44, 105-116. 

Cornips, L. (2022). The animal turn in postcolonial (socio)linguistics: the
interspecies greeting of the dairy cow. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics,
(6), 209-231.

Fetters, M. D., Curry, L. A., & Creswell, J. W. (2013). Achieving integration
in mixed methods designs—principles and practices. Health services research,
48(6pt2), 2134-2156.

Goodwin, M. H., Cekaite, A., Goodwin, C., & Tulbert, E. (2012). Emotion as
stance. Emotion in interaction, 16, 41.

Karimzad, F., & Catedral, L. (2018). Mobile (dis) connection: New technology
and rechronotopized images of the homeland. Journal of Linguistic
Anthropology, 28(3), 293-312.

Sanjek, R. (1990). A vocabulary for fieldnotes. Fieldnotes: The makings of
anthropology, 92-121.

Silverstein, M. (1993). “Metapragmatic Discourse and Metapragmatic Function.”
In J. Luc ed., Reflexive Language, 32-58. New York: Cambridge University
Press.

Taylor, T., Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B. & Pearce, C. (2012). Chapter 8. Ethics.
In Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (pp. 129-150).
Princeton: Princeton University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Marie Rickert is a PhD candidate in Linguistic Anthropology based at
Maastricht University (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) & University of
Münster (Institute of Dutch Philology). She widely applies linguistic
ethnographic methods. Her research interests include language socialization,
multilingualism in education, child interaction and processes of
identification through language practices. Currently, she works on a project
on linguistic diversity in Early Childcare and Education, funded by the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the
Marie-Skłodowska-Curie grant number 847596.





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