36.3610, Reviews: Linguistics and Oral History: Chris Fitzgerald (ed.) (2025)

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Subject: 36.3610, Reviews: Linguistics and Oral History: Chris Fitzgerald (ed.) (2025)

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Date: 24-Nov-2025
From: Philemon Victor Gomwalk [philgomwalk at gmail.com]
Subject: Anthropological Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, General Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Chris Fitzgerald (ed.) (2025)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-2799

Title: Linguistics and Oral History
Subtitle: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/linguistics-and-oral-history-9781350458239/

Editor(s): Chris Fitzgerald

Reviewer: Philemon Victor Gomwalk

Review of Linguistics and Oral History
Reviewer: Philemon Victor Gomwalk
Book Title: Linguistics and Oral History
Editor: Chris Fitzgerald
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Date of Publication: 2025
Summary
Chris Fitzgerald’s edited volume is organized into twelve (12)
chapters. These chapters broadly explore the intersection of
linguistics and oral history, covering topics such as the role of
memory and language, the interpretation of transcription practices,
and the challenges and opportunities for critical discourse analysts.
It also delves into the use of oral history in various contexts,
including second-language narration, English language teaching, speech
therapy, public art, and dialectology research, providing
comprehensive views of how the two academic disciplines of linguistics
and oral historiography can inform and enrich each other.
In the Introduction section (pp. 1-4), Fitzgerald highlights and
justifies the significant linkages between the research areas of
linguistics, social anthropology, and oral historiography. In doing
this, he points to the unique contributions of all chapters in the
volume as they collectively seek to highlight and draw attention to
theoretical and methodological insights and parallels  about
constructing and analyzing written transcriptions of spoken discourse
events. Consideration is also given by Fitzgerald to identifying
salient linguistic themes and analytical perspectives that frame
discourse practices in oral histories, as well as practical
considerations facing researchers when investigating large samples of
spoken discourse.
Chapter 1 (pp.5-24) - The role of memory and language in oral
histories - by Natalie Braber offers a critical review of literature
displaying the correlation between linguistics and oral history, in
addition to exploring how sociolinguists can investigate various
linguistic features related to memory in the telling of oral history
narratives. Chapter 2 (pp. 25-40) - In and out of context: oral
history as data—by Mary Larson provides an in-depth treatment of oral
history as critical research data and discusses what is gained and
lost when oral history becomes ‘data fed’ as we come to terms with the
notion of big data in both linguistics and oral history. Chapter 3
(pp.41-60) - The collector as a linguist: Interpreting transcription
practices of Irish English oral ethnographies - by Gili Diamant
discusses the process of constructing transcripts that accurately
represent the spoken event in relation to a collection of Irish
English ethnographies. Diamant also dwells on the use of various
research tools that aid in the collection and analysis of oral
historical records, which is a shared concern of both linguistics and
oral history.  Chapter 4 (pp.61-74) - Oral history and the limits of
Interpretation - by Steven High presents another set of research tools
that can aid the oral historian in compiling, accessing, and analyzing
collections of oral histories. The tools described share similarities
in functionality with those designed specifically for the conduct of
linguistic corpus analysis. Chapter 5 (pp.75-94) - Analyzing for
resistance in talk and text: Challenges and opportunities for critical
discourse analysts and oral historians by Elizabeth Kiely sets out to
synthesize the theoretical, and methodological concerns of oral
history with those of critical discourse studies, as well as to show
the value of engaging with resistance schema for analyzing resistance
in text and talk. Chapter 6 (pp. 95-114)—Oral history and second
language narrators by Carol McKirdy explores the inherent logistical
challenges and practical solutions associated with gathering oral
histories of second-language narrators. Chapter 7 (pp.115-142) -
Crossroads: Where oral history, English language teaching and
culturally sustaining pedagogies intersect by Mary Romney-Schaab
attempts to dissect why culturally sustaining pedagogies can play
significant roles in English language teaching through oral history by
providing a rationale for the use of oral history in English language
teaching. Romney-Schaab explores this compatibility and provides
suggestions for the implementation of oral history in language
teaching. Chapter 8 (pp.143-164) - ‘Linguistics hadn’t been invented’:
Oral histories of speech therapy in the twentieth century by Jois
Stansfeld describes the relationship between linguistics and oral
history as related to speech therapy, exploring the decision-making
process and the issues that arose in collecting speech therapy oral
histories, when language is not only the mode of data collection, but
also the medium of professional practice for contributors. Chapter 9
(pp.165-182) - Combining oral history and linguistics to explore
public art and cultural memory by Sarah O’Brien and Chris
Fitzgerald—discusses how various theoretical framings of oral
histories surrounding the erection of a controversial statue in an
Irish town can be combined with linguistic analysis of a very
different medium, social media discourse, to provide a thorough
understanding of local sentiment. Chapter 10 (pp.183-204) - The
Regional English Dialects Diachronic (REDD) corpus project: Using
archives for dialectology research - by Sarah Kirk-Browne—describes
the Regional Dialects Diachronic (REDD) corpus, which identifies
recordings from different regional locations in England, over a
100-year time span, for inclusion in a sociolinguistic corpus. Chapter
11 (pp.205-236) - The Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects (FRED):
Challenges and affordances of a corpus of oral histories by Nuria
Hernández and  Susanne Wagner provides a comprehensive account of the
construction and analysis of the Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects
(FRED). Chapter 12 (pp.237-252) -Keywords in discourse: Unlocking the
meaning attributed to historical events around the French Libération
(1944) in interviews with time witnesses in later life by Annette
Gerstenberg highlights and provides detailed insights that can be
gained from such corpora by looking at keywords. Gerstenberg’s
analysis of interviews from the LangAge corpora undertakes to analyse
the differentiated approaches ordinary individual participants pursue
as they link their personal memories with crucial events in collective
history, taking the example of the challenging period immediately post
Second World War, including the events of épuration and femmes tondues
(shorn women).
Evaluation
The overall value that Chris Fitzgerald’s volume holds for readers
lies in the efforts made by its individual contributors to highlight
and demonstrate the multifaceted nature and extensive scope of
linguistics, oral historiography, and historical narrative
representations. Its contributors come from a wide range of
theoretical backgrounds and, thus, choose to apply different
analytical procedures for explaining and reporting on their topics and
on the data sets deployed in their respective chapters.
There are contributions from corpus linguists ( Sarah Kirk-Browne -
Chapter 10; Nuria Hernández & Susanne Wagner - Chapter 11; Annette
Gerstenberg - Chapter 12) , sociolinguists(Elizabeth Kiely – Chapter
5), second language acquisition experts (Carol McKirdy -Chapter 6;
Mary Romney-Schaab - Chapter 7), a dialectologist (Gili Diamant
-Chapter 3), speech therapist (Jois Stansfield – Chapter 8) and oral
history practitioners ( Sarah O’Brien and Chris Fitzgerald - Chapter
9; Steven High – Chapter 4; Mary Larson - Chapter 2; Natalie Braber
-Chapter1) who present how oral historical texts and artifacts can be
investigated and interpreted from linguistic perspectives.
In presenting different analytical and interpretive perspectives from
both disciplines, some of the contributors in the volume attempt ‘‘…
to exposes the synergies that exist between oral history and
linguistics, including methodological parallels in constructing and
analyzing written transcriptions of spoken events’’ as well as to
present relevant theoretical perspectives which meaningfully inform
discourse practices in oral histories. Some contributors identify and
comprehensively explore the practical considerations facing
researchers when investigating large samples of digital oral corpora
(or historical discourse texts or events). For purposes of overall
content evaluation, I find four chapters in Fitzgerald’s volume worthy
of special mention and brief highlight. These are identified and
treated below, in descending order of impact, viz, Chapters 1, 4, 2 &
5.
I rate Chapter 1 by Natalie Braber as the most impactful chapter
because the author’s discussion is not only incisive but also very
illustrative; succeeding in highlighting and explaining the intrinsic
research correlations between linguistics and oral history. The author
is particularly explicit and convincing about how sociolinguistic
considerations can be seen to play fundamental roles in the retelling
of oral history narratives and how this is systematically related to
the cultural functions of human memory.
Braber is also able to establish that oral history is a potentially
rich resource for dialect research and that dialect research can be a
veritable source of oral histories. She further succeeds in
explaining, in appropriate detail, the role of sociolinguists in the
observation of memory in the patterning of oral history interviews.
The chapter also mentions and illustrates a number of key linguistic
features that speakers often use while retelling historical narratives
from their memories (see pp. 1-6).
Other aspects of  Braber’s discussion are presented under key
subheadings as follows: language and oral history (pp. 9-12);
industrial/occupational language (pp. 13-15); Using pit-talk as a case
study of interaction between linguistics and oral history (pp. 12-13);
Important themes (pp. 16-17); and Narratives (pp. 17-18).  Other
significant publications of Natalie Braber that further amplify ideas
and conclusions expressed in the chapter include the following:
Braber, 2024; 2025; Braber & Davies, 2016.
Next, I rate Chapter 4 by Steven High as the second impactful
contribution in Fitzgerald’s volume. This is because the author of
this chapter succeeds in demonstrating that linguistics and oral
history do share symbiotic linkages and, thus, can co-exist, since
both disciplines share some commonalities in research goals,
methodologies and approaches, which are geared towards understanding
and handling of raw, human-generated data. Such  synergies do exist
because both disciplines are collectively devoted to the systematic
investigation and understanding of the nature of human language: its
formal structure; its synchronic functions in society, and how all of
the specific research endeavors are implicitly related to typologies
and phases of oral historical development.
Steven High further argues that contemporary research in both
linguistics and oral history continues to grapple with issues relating
to the inherent nature of writing, oral communication, recorded oral
narratives, and transcribed speech forms. The author raises a critical
point about the deep-seated challenges embedded in understanding and
adequately interpreting the key features of many oral narratives,
especially those that have been subjected to contemporary
transcription procedures (see pp. 61-62 in the volume).
While admitting that there are no ready-made methodological
breakthroughs in the contemporary digitization and preservation of
oral historical narratives, Steven High also believes that the
discussion of his personal research experiences and insights in his
chapter can assist in promoting better understanding of the
interpretive value attached to the modernization and progressive
digitization of oral historical narratives in general.
This is an argument that I recognize as legitimate and which I readily
agree can constitute a viable subject for future research work in
interface studies of linguistics and oral history (also see High,
2010; 2015; High  & Sworn, 2009—other publications of Steven High that
raise and project some of the ideas and arguments contained in the
chapter above). Other relevant references which support and further
amplify some of the ideas and conclusions raised in the chapter
include the following: Frisch, 2006; 2008; Grele,1994.
Next, I rate Chapter 2 by  Mary Larson as another impactful
contribution in Fitzgerald’s volume. My selection of this chapter is
premised on the author’s ability to identify and fully capture the
relevance of contextual factors in the conduct of research activities
in both linguistics and oral history, especially with the availability
of artificial intelligence applications in the contemporary world that
make it possible to record and preserve otherwise transient personal
experiences and social events in real-time. Larson’s chapter also
critically examines how the availability of new digital technologies
has offered linguists and oral history practitioners increased
opportunities for the expedient processing and detailed analyses of
large data corpora.
The chapter also raises other key questions about the likely
challenges of large-scale data capture of oral historical narratives
and the implications that the adoption of such processes can have for
the documentation of critical information that is prone to potential
loss if not properly preserved (see pp. 25-26 for an introductory
discussion of the inherent challenges of contemporary data capture of
oral history corpora). Comprehensive, illustrative consideration of
other relevant issues surrounding the digitization of oral historical
narratives is provided under some of the subheadings of the chapter as
follows: context (pp. 26-27); big data and datafication (pp. 27-28);
big data as a medium (pp. 29-31); decontextualization (pp. 31-33);
maintained context (pp. 33-35); added context (pp. 35-36). Other
relevant publications which amplify some of the ideas and conclusions
expressed in the chapter include the following: Adolphs & Carter,
2013; Diemer, Brunner & Schmidt, 2016; Fitzgerald, 2023; Mazé, 2014 .
Finally, I also rate Chapter 5 by Elizabeth Kiely as another impactful
contribution in Fitzgerald’s volume. The chapter is worthy of
honourable mention because its author is able to identify and
meaningfully discuss the use of resistance frameworks/schema in the
conduct of critical research work in some key areas of both
linguistics and oral history.
The chapter commences with a consideration of the key research goals
of critical discourse studies (as an offshoot of general linguistics)
and matches them with those of oral historiography in general and oral
narrative analysis in particular. Thereafter, the chapter proceeds to
explain why critical resistance schema can be profitably applied to
both linguistics and oral history research alike. Finally, the chapter
provides the reader with an overview of the interdisciplinary
literature of resistance studies, leading towards uncovering how
critical resistance theory can be situated and profitably applied in
critical discourse studies of oral historical narratives.
The primary conclusion of the chapter is that there is potential value
in using critical resistance framework/schema as analytical tools to
explore the complexities of everyday discourse events from both
synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the context of complicated
power relations. This conclusion is amply demonstrated in different
sections of Kiely’s chapter in the volume, which contain detailed
discussion on, and illustrative data cited from, oral history
narratives of Irish women talking about their working lives in parts
of contemporary Ireland.
More detailed consideration of issues surrounding critical resistance
theory and application are provided under the key subheadings in
Kiely’s chapter as follows: critical discourse studies and oral
history (pp. 76-77); resistance in the literature (pp. 77-78);
resistance schema (pp.78-79); beyond the consensual core to
repertoires of everyday resistance (pp. 82-83);  repertoires of
resistance in relation to configurations of power (pp. 83-84);
spatialization and temporalization in analysing resistance (pp.
85-87); resistance reinforcing/creating new performances of resistance
(pp. 87-88);  self-reflection, emotion, and affect (pp. 88-90).
I find Kiely’s discussion in the chapter both invigorating and
illustrative, because it is able to reveal the complexity of
resistance and its complicated relationship with power dynamics in
society. The author’s citations and illustrations from the oral
history narratives of Irish women, rather than Irish men, also
convincingly demonstrate that human resistance narratives can embody
different outcomes.  Such outcomes frequently depend on, or shift
with, gender, economic, political, and sociocultural landscapes.  This
is comparable to similar conclusions emerging from several other
studies that also focus on critical-resistance research and analysis
(see, for example, Hollander & Einwohner, 2004; Johansson & Vinthagen,
2014).
Apart from the stimulating and insightful contents of the individual
chapters, Chris Fitzgerald’s volume is also strengthened by its
ability to identify and demonstrate the applicability of different
theoretical perspectives and approaches to the investigation of the
relationships between linguistics and oral history. Although the
chapters are varied in theoretical and methodological orientation,
the writing style of each chapter remained generally clear and
accessible. With clear presentation layouts, thus, it is relatively
easy for each chapter to be read independently for its own merit
On the whole, I find that all twelve chapters in the volume are,
individually, thoughtfully organized and well-written, and they cite
suitable case study data and examples to aid potential readers in
gaining a better understanding of key concepts and issues related to
the varied links between both linguistics and oral history. These
links, involving commonalities in broad goals, methods, and
theoretical/analytical concerns, are appropriately highlighted,
discussed, and illustrated from a wide range of data sources. The
coherence of discourse in different chapters of the volume is also
generally maintained through apt cross-referencing to relevant past
studies conducted in linguistics, social anthropology, and oral
history, among other academic disciplines.
I view the publication of Fitzgerald’s volume as ‘significant’ because
it raises not only the interesting possibilities that can emerge from
cross-disciplinary research studies but also sufficiently justifies
why it is necessary to explore the adoption and innovative application
of research methodologies and approaches across the strict confines of
academic disciplines. Thus, new directions, pathways, and
multidisciplinary approaches can be facilitated and adopted for the
rigorous empirical investigations of interfaces between different
research disciplines. The cross-disciplinary application of
methodology and research outcomes is not only raised but also well
articulated in some of the chapters in Fitzgerald’s volume.
Based on my overall assessment of its academic worth and potential
publication value, I warmly recommend Fitzgerald’s edited volume to
readers, particularly those with expertise in language, social
anthropology, and oral history, because it is a significant
publication offering new and invaluable insights into key aspects of
linguistics, oral historiography, and historical narrative
representations. This makes the volume beneficial to applied linguists
as well as researchers from other humanities disciplines.
References
Adolphs, S. and R. Carter (2013). ‘Spoken corpus linguistics: From
monomodal to
multimodal’, in J. Romero-Trillo (ed), Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics
and Pragmatics 2015, 307–12, London: Routledge.
Braber, N. (2024), ‘“We didn’t realise our language was part of our
heritage”: Oral histories with East Midlands coal miners’, Oral
History, 52(2): 86–98.
Braber, N. (2025). ‘Scabs, pickets and camaraderie: Words and memories
of East Midlands coal miners’, in A. Rigney and S. Van Den Elzen
(eds), Memory and the Language of Contention, 68–87, Leiden: Brill
Braber, N. and D. Davies (2016). ‘Using and creating oral history in
dialect research’, Oral History, 44(1): 98–107.
Diemer, S., M. Brunner and S. Schmidt (2016). ‘Compiling
computer-mediated spoken
language Corpora: Key issues and recommendations’, International
Journal of Corpus
Linguistics, 21(3): 348–71.
Frisch, Michael (2006). ‘Oral history and the digital revolution:
Toward a post- documentary sensibility’, in Robert Perks and Alistair
Tomson (eds), The Oral History Reader, 2nd edn, 102–14, London:
Routledge.
Fitzgerald, C. (2023). Investigating a Corpus of Historical Oral
Testimonies: Te Linguistic Construction of Certainty. London:
Routledge
Frisch, Michael (2008). ‘Tree dimensions and more: Oral history beyond
the paradoxes of method’, in Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and Patricia
Leavy (eds), Handbook of Emergent Methods, 221–38, New York:
Guildford.
Grele, Ronald J. (1994). ‘History and the languages of history in the
oral history interview: Who answers whose questions and why?’ in Eva
M. McMahan and Kim Lacy Rogers (eds), Interactive Oral History
Interviewing, 1–18, Hilsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hollander, J.A. and R.L. Einwohner (2004). ‘Conceptualizing
resistance’, Sociological Forum, 19(4): 533–54.
Johansson, A. and S. Vinthagen (2014). ‘Dimensions of everyday
resistance: An analytic
framework’, Critical Sociology, 42(3): 1–19
Mazé, E. (2014). ‘Deconstruction without destruction: Creating
metadata for oral
history in a digital world’, in D. Boyd and M. Larson (eds), Oral
History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, 145–56,
New York: Palgrave Macmillan



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