Postgraduate Course: Linguistic Fieldwork and Language Description (LASC11061)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Language Sciences |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | Goals
This course prepares the participants for linguistic fieldwork. To that end, the course aims (1) to familiarize the participants with relevant data collection techniques; (2) to prepare them to independently process and analyze the resulting data; (3) to enable the participants to develop a descriptive analysis through a dialectic between data collection and systematic reflection upon those data.
There are several ways to collect data in a fieldwork situation, such as controlled elicitation (i.e., question-answer session with one or more informants); collection and analysis of a corpus of spontaneous speech; and participant observation. In this course, students will learn to investigate a language using the first two of these approaches.
Collecting data on previously undocumented linguistic phenomena comes down to being sensitive to notice the unexpected, and to then proceed to examine it. In this course, the student is prepared for this challenge by experiencing first-hand the cycle of confusion and hypothesis-testing in the elicitation sessions, and by learning about the range of variation at different levels of the grammar, through the lectures and required readings.
This course offers students the opportunity to develop several skills that are of great value outside the study of linguistics: (1) processing, analysing and summarising data; (2) to solve problems through critical analysis of newly collected data.
Structure of the course
The course will cover the following general topics: (1) approaches and issues in fieldwork data collection; (2) analysing the sound system of an unfamiliar language; (3) analysing the morphosyntax of an unfamiliar language. These topics will be explored through lectures, coursework sessions with a native-speaker consultant, readings, and a project paper.
Sessions with native-speaker consultant - The sessions with a native-speaker consultant constitute the backbone of the course.
Active participation is essential here ? it is up to the students themselves to elicit most of the data. These sessions make up two thirds of the total contact time. In these sessions, the participants will elicit data from a native speaker of an unfamiliar language, and analyse narrative material with the native speaker?s assistance.
English will be used as the contact language. The students themselves will prepare the material to be elicited beforehand. At several occasions we will make recordings, to collect a narrative to work on, and to support the analysis of the sound system and the grammar.
Initially, the students will elicit words in isolation and in simple sentences. When the students have developed an understanding of the fundamentals of the sound system, they will move on to elicit more complex constructions, as the investigation shifts towards the morphology and syntax of the language. At some point along the way, we will start with narrative analysis, which provides data that are complementary to the material collected through controlled elicitation.
Performance in the elicitation sessions is part of the assessment (cf. below). In order to perform well in these sessions, the students need to carefully process and analyse the material collected in each session, as soon as possible after the end of the session. This analytic work should then inform the preparation of materials to be collected in the following session.
Lectures and readings - The third of the three weekly contact hours is a lecture. Along with the weekly required reading, these lectures will support the discovery process in the sessions, and stimulate the linguistic analysis of the resulting data. For example, if there is some evidence of lexical specification of tone, the next lecture may offer an introduction to the typology, phonology and phonetics of tone. The lecture will also be used to provide feedback on elicitation performance in the preceding session, and discuss challenges in elicitation. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Delivery period: 2014/15 Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
|
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
15/09/2014 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
|
| Additional Notes |
|
| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
The course aims:
(1) to familiarize the participants with the practice of controlled elicitation and other fieldwork data collection techniques;
(2) to prepare them to independently collect and analyze previously unavailable linguistic data, and to write up the resulting findings. |
Assessment Information
- Participation in Elicitation Sessions 20%
- A short paper of 1500-2000 words outlining the sound system of the target language 20%
Deadline: Monday 20th October 2014, 12 noon
Return Date: 3rd November 2014
- Project Paper (4000+ words) 60%
Deadline: Monday 1st December 2014, 12 noon
Return Date: 23rd December 2014 |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
The set of readings below gives some insight into the course content:
Gil, David (2001). Escaping Eurocentrism: fieldwork as a process of unlearning. In Paul Newman & Martha Ratliff (eds.). Linguistic Fieldwork. Cambridge University Press, 102-132.
Kutsch-Lojenga, Constance (1996). Participatory research in linguistics. Notes on linguistics 73:13-27. [available from LinguaLinks]
Payne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge University Press.
Vaux, Bert & Justin Cooper (1999). Introduction to linguistic field methods. Lincom Europe. |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Albert Remijsen
Tel: (0131 6)50 6657
Email: b.remijsen@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: Toni.noble@ed.ac.uk |
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