[RNLD] Word Hunters: Field Linguists on Fieldwork

[Hannah Sarvasy]

Dear colleagues,


Apologies for cross-posting: Diana Forker and my new compilation of linguistic fieldwork autobiographies, Word Hunters, out with Benjamins this month, may be of interest to many on this list. Although Benjamins books aren't cheap (see previous RNLD discussions of book prices!), I hope that some will be able to get their institutional and community libraries to purchase copies.... Please see below for summary and advance praise.


https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/slcs.194/main


Best wishes,

Hannah Sarvasy


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In Word Hunters, eleven distinguished linguists reflect on their career-spanning linguistic fieldwork. Over decades, each has repeatedly stood up to physical, intellectual, interpersonal, intercultural, and sometimes political challenges in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. These scholar-explorers have enlightened the world to the inner workings of languages in remote communities of Africa (West, East, and South), Amazonia, the Arctic, Australia, the Caucasus, Oceania, Siberia, and East Asia. They report some linguistic eureka moments, but also discuss cultural missteps, illness, and the other challenges of pursuing linguistic data in extreme circumstances. They write passionately about language death and their responsibilities to speech communities. The stories included here—the stuff of departmental and family legends—are published publicly for the first time.

“A paean to linguistic fieldwork, with all its trials and tribulations, but equally with all the triumphs and joys of giving a voice to speakers of endangered and other little-described languages, often from severely disadvantaged communities. The outsider will read with awe and envy.”
— Bernard Comrie, University of California, Santa Barbara

“Fieldwork is among the most fundamental kinds of linguistic research: it creates the empirical basis for an unbiased, non-Eurocentric theory of language. This book provides a nice selection of fieldworkers' personal accounts of their experiences, covering many language areas of the world.”
— Andrej Kibrik, Russian Academy of Sciences

“The essays in Word Hunters reflect on fieldwork by highly experienced fieldworkers working around the world, reviewing what they learned, details about the peoples they worked with, insights into the languages that they worked on, and the challenges, rewards, and responsibilities of life as a fieldworker. Each author brings their own story and their own interests, and the reader has much to learn. Thanks to all of those who contributed to giving the reader rich perspectives on fieldwork. Let’s hope that someday we see a companion volume, reporting on the experiences of fieldwork from the perspective of the speakers that the linguists were so fortunate to work with!”
— Keren Rice, University of Toronto

“Both aspiring and experienced field linguists will find much of value in this volume's focus on the very human side of fieldwork. It's not often in linguistics that one can get a glimpse into the ways that linguists manage the inevitable difficulties that arise when working on languages far from home as well as how they respond to the many small triumphs that make their work successful. This book should be required reading for any student contemplating a career involving linguistic fieldwork, and even seasoned fieldworkers will enjoy the opportunity it provides them to compare their own experiences with those presented in this collection.”
— Jeff Good, University of Buffalo

“The peaks and troughs of linguistic fieldwork have for too long remained something of a guild secret. This collection of autobiographical accounts by eleven 'unsung heroes of linguistics' is leavened by the insights of two editors who are themselves consummate fieldworkers. It vividly conveys the intellectual exhilaration, the manifold practical challenges, and the profound existential re-tuning that pervade this most fundamental aspect of the linguistic endeavour.”
— Nicholas Evans, Australian National University




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