___This is the catch-all section for references and websites that did not fit under the other rubrics of funding, ethics or technology. You will find such links as that to an anthropologist's checklist before leaving for the field (don't forget anything!). Generally, though, this page provides a list of references from books and journal articles on the experience of fieldworkers—both anthropologists and linguists, guides on fieldwork preparation, practice and methodology, elicitation techniques, and much more.


Select from the links below to navigate page content:

Web Links:
Books & Journal Articles:
Printable Bibliography


 

Web Links:

Anthropology/Linguistics Field Checklist by James A. Fox, Ph.D
Don't forget anything that you will need for your fieldwork!
http://www.stanford.edu/~popolvuh/field-checklist.htm

Linguistic Fieldwork at Stanford University : Information on Linguistics Fieldwork
This site is a good pit-stop before embarking on fieldwork. It covers points to be remembered before, during and after the fieldwork. Additionally, you can find a page housing stories of students' fieldwork experience.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/linguistics/fieldwork/info/index.html

Terralingua
This is the home page for Terralingua, ‘a non-profit, international organization founded in 1996 by a group of professionals working in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, biodiversity conservation, and human rights who share a fundamental belief: that the challenge of protecting, maintaining, and restoring the diversity of life on earth is the challenge of supporting and promoting diversity in nature and culture.'
http://www.terralingua.org/

Back to Top


Books & Journal Articles:

Abbi, Anvita. 2001. A Manual of Linguistic Field Work and Indian Language Structures. Munich: LINCOM EUROPA.

Agar, Michael. 1980. The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. New York: Academic Press.

Aitken, B. 1955. A note on eliciting. International Journal of American Linguistics 21:81.

Albert, Ethel. 1972. “'Rhetoric', ‘logic', and ‘poetics' in Burundi : culture patterning of speech behavior.” In John J. Gumperz and Dell Hymes (editors), The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. 72-105.

Austin, Peter (editor). 2004. Language documentation and description Volume 2. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project.

Bickford, J. Albert. 1998. Tools for analyzing the world's languages: morphology and syntax. Dallas, Texas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Bird, Steven, and Gary Simons. 2003. Seven dimensions of portability for language documentation and description. Language 79:557-582.

Bouquiaux, Luc, Jacqueline M. C. Thomas and James Robert. 1992. Studying and Describing Unwritten Languages. SIL International.

Bourhis, R.Y., H. Giles, & D. Rosenthal. 1981. Notes on the construction of a ‘subjective vitality questionnaire' for ethnolinguistic groups. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 2:145-155.

Bowern, Claire. Linguistic Fieldwork Methodology: An introduction to data elicitation methods in the field and the classroom. Under review by Palgrave MacMillan. (Please contact the author for the url; email <bowern@rice.edu>)

Briggs, Charles L. 1986. Learning how to ask: a sociolinguistic appraisal of the role of the interview in social science research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Burling, Robbins. 2000. Learning a field language. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.

Cantoni, Gina. 1996. Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff, Arizona: Northern Arizona University.

Sections available free on-line:

Chafe, William L. (editor). American Indian languages and American linguistics. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press.

Chambers, J.K., & P. Trudgill. 1991. “Dialect grammar: data and theory.” In P. Trudgill and J.K. Chambers (editors), Dialects of English. New York & London: Longman. 291-296.

Comrie, Bernard, and Smith, Norval. 1977. Lingua Descriptive Studies: questionnaire. Lingua 42:1-72.

Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comrie, Bernard. 1981. Language universals and linguistic typology: morphology and syntax. Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Comrie, Bernard. 1988. Role of the field linguist. From Notes on Linguistics 41, January.

Craig, Colette. 1979. “Jacaltec: field work in Guatamala,” In Timothy Shopen (editor), Languages and their speakers. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Winthrop. 3-57.

Craig, Colette Grinevald. 1997. “Language contact and language degeneration.” In Florian Coulmas (ed.) The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 257-270.

Crystal, David. 2000. Language death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

De Laine, Marlene. 2002. Fieldwork, Participation and Practice. Ethics and Dilemmas in Qualitative Research. Sage.

Dixon , Robert M. W. 1984. Searching for Aboriginal languages: memoirs of a field worker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Edwards, Jane A., and Lampert, Martin D. (editors). 1993. Talking data: transcription and coding in discourse research. Hillsdale N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Everett, Daniel L. 2004. “Coherent fieldwork.” In Peit van Sterkenburg (editor), Linguistics today—Facing a greater challenge. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 141-162(?).

Evers, Larry and Bare Toelken (editors). 2001. Native American Oral Traditions: Collaboration and Interpretation. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

Grenoble, Lenore and Lindsay Whaley (editors). Endangered languages: language loss and community response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grimes, Charles F. 1992. Field guide to recording language data. Ambon, Indonesia: Summer Institute of Linguistics & Pattimura University.

Gudschinsky, Sarah Caroline. 1967. How to Learn an Unwritten Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Hale, Kenneth and Leanne Hinton. 2001. The green book of language revitalization in practice. Academic Press.

Hale, Kenneth. 1976. “Theoretical linguistics in relation to American Indian communities.” In Wallace L. Chafe (ed.), American Indian languages and American linguistics. Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press.

Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1998. Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36:161-195. Full version available online here: http://corpus.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~ling240/himmelmann.pdf

Hymes, Dell (editor). Reinventing anthropology. New York: Pantheon Books.

Jackson, B. and E. D. Ives (editors). 1996. The World Observed: Reflections on the Fieldwork Process. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.

Kibrik, Aleksandr E. 1977. The methodology of field investigations in linguistics: setting up the problem. In Janua linguarum. Series minor; 142. The Hague: Mouton.

Ladefoged, Peter and Anthony Traill. 1980. Instrumental phonetic fieldwork. UCLA working papers in phonetics 49:28-42.

Lounsbury, Floyd. 1953. “Field methods and techniques in linguistics.” In A. L. Kroeber (editor) Anthropology today: an encyclopedic inventory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 401-416.

Macaulay, Monica. 2004. Training Linguistics Students for the Realities of Fieldwork. Anthropological Linguistics 46(2):194-209.

McKinnie, Meghan P. L. and Tom Priestly. 2004. Telling tales out of school: assessing linguistic competence in minority language fieldwork. In Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development 25:24-40.

McTaggart, Fred. 1984. Wolf that I Am: In Search of the Red Earth People. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.

Matthewson, Lisa. 2004. On the methodology of semantic fieldwork. International Journal of American Linguistics 70: 369-415.

Nagy, Naomi. 2000. What I didn't know about working in an endangered language community: some fieldwork issues. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 144:143-160.

Nettle, Daniel. 1998. Linguistic diversity. New York: Oxford University Press.

Nettle, Daniel and Suzanne Romaine. 2000. Vanishing voices: the extinction of the world's languages. New York: Oxford University Press.

Newman, Paul and Martha Ratliff (editors). 2001. Linguistic fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Newman, Paul. 1992. Fieldwork and field methods in linguistics. California Linguistic Notes. 23:3-8.

Paul, Benjamin D. 1953. “Interview techniques and field relationships.” In Sol Tax (editor), Anthropology Today: Selections. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Payne, Thomas E. 1997. Describing morphosyntax: a guide for field linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Post, Jennifer C., Bucknum, Mary Russell, and Sercombe, Laurel. 1994. A manual for documentation, fieldwork and preservation for ethnomusicologists, 7. Bloomington, Indiana: The Society for Ethnomusicology.

Reyhner, John (editor). 1997. Teaching Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff, Arizona: Northern Arizona University.
Available free online: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/TIL_Contents.html

Rintell, Ellen, and Mitchell, Candice. 1989. “Studying requests and apologies: an inquiry into method.” In Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper (editors). Cross-cultural pragmatics: requests and apologies. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.

Sakiyama, Osamu (editor). 2001. Lectures on Endangered Languages: 2. Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim.
(For copies, contact: Osahito Miyaoka, Project Director, ELPR, Faculty of Informatics, Osaka Gakuin University, Kishibe-minami 2-chome, Suita, Osaka 564-8511, Japan (elpr@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp).)

Samarin, William. J. 1967. Field linguistics: a guide to linguistic field work. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston.

Sapon, Stanley M. 1957. A Pictorial Linguistic Interview Manual. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press.

Schüller, Dietrich. 1999. Minidisc for field recording? Applying archiving principles to data gathering. IASA Journal 14:35-40.

Silverman, Sydel, and Nancy J. Parezo (editors). 1995. Preserving the anthropological record . New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc.

Simons, Gary F. and Evan L. Antworth. 1991. A guide to linguistic field methods. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Simpson, Jane, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin and Barry Alpher (editors). 2001. Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Shopen, Timothy (editor). 1985. Language Typology and Syntactic Description. vol. 1: Clause structure; vol. 2: Complex constructions; vol. 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press under the auspices of the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Sutton, Peter and Michael Walsh. 1979. Revised linguistic fieldwork manual for Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Tsunoda, Tasaku. 2001. “Role and Ethics of Researchers and Method of Documentation.” In Osamu Sakiyama (editor). Lectures on Endangered Languages: 2. Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim.
(For copies, contact: Osahito Miyaoka, Project Director, ELPR, Faculty of Informatics, Osaka Gakuin University, Kishibe-minami 2-chome, Suita, Osaka 564-8511, Japan (elpr@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp).)

Ullman, S. 1953. Descriptive semantics and linguistic typology. Word 9:225-240.

Vaux, Bert and Justin Cooper. 1999. Introduction to linguistic field methods. München and Newcastle: LINCOM EUROPA.

Whalen, Douglas 2004. “How the study of endangered languages will revolutionize linguistics.” In Piet van Sterkernburg (editor), Linguistics today—Facing a greater challenge, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 321-(?).

Wimbish, John S. 1990. SHOEBOX: A Data Management Program for the Field Linguist. Ambon, Indonesia: Summer Institute of Linguistics & Pattimura University.

Wittenburg, Peter, Ulrike Mosel and Adrienne Dwyer. 2002. “Methods of language documentation in the DOBES program.” In M. Rodriguez and C. Surez Araujo (editors), Proceedings of the third international conference on language resources and evaluation (LREC 2002). [The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Facultad de Informatica, 26./27. May 2002]. Paris: European Language Resources Association. 36-42.

Woodbury, Anthony C. 2004. Defining documentary linguistics. In Peter Austin (editor), Papers in Language Documentation and Description, Volume 1. Proceedings of the 2003 Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Programme Workshop. London: School of Oriental and African Studies.

Yegerlehner, J. 1955. A note on eliciting techniques. In International Journal of American Linguistics 21:286-288.



Additions or Comments? Email Us

Back to Top

CRD