Language

This engaging textbook covers all conceivable aspects of fieldwork, from the preparation stage of writing grant proposals and obtaining visas, to the final stages of archiving the data. Fieldwork culminating in a descriptively based grammar has long been considered an apprenticeship for a life in linguistics (Dixon 1997, Samarin 1967:8). This book is designed both for students taking a field methods class, and for those undertaking fieldwork in a community other than their own. Students in a field methods class will be working with an informant chosen by the teacher, in structured sessions also organized by the teacher. For these readers, Chs. 5-9 on how to elicit different sorts of linguistic data and Ch. 4 on data organization and archiving will be the most relevant. For the researcher undertaking fieldwork in a remote location, this book covers just about everything that they will encounter.

To see what is special about Bowern's approach, it is useful to look at some of the other textbooks available on fieldwork, of which there are now several. All of these books on fieldwork reflect the personality of the writer, and indeed all fieldwork experiences are strongly, crucially shaped by this aspect. In perhaps no other field of linguistics is the personality of the linguist so crucial. It is no surprise then that this is reflected so sharply in these books.

Samarin 1967, comprehensive and authoritative, has been something of a standard textbook on field linguistics. Like B, Samarin focuses heavily on the relationship between the informant (his term) and the data to be collected. Samarin's self-proclaimed task is 'to prepare investigators of language for their confrontation with the source of their data-the living speakers of languages' (vi). He is faithful to this aim, detailing how to locate informants and establish and maintain good working relationships with them. It is an engaging book: early on, Samarin stresses that fieldwork can be fun (vii). In fact, in most of the works discussed here the pleasure of fieldwork is mentioned to varying degrees. And like most of these books, Samarin's brings out the intellectual excitement of the fieldwork endeavor. [End Page 435]

Dixon 1984 is not a standard fieldwork textbook, but is nevertheless an extremely useful guide to working particularly with Australian aboriginal communities; it is a completely anecdotal but informative meander through fieldworking in Australia.

The table of contents of Vaux & Cooper 1999 reads like a grammar, with chapters on phonetics and phonology, nominal and verbal morphology, syntax, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and text collection. The book focuses on the type of data to be elicited rather than the social or political aspects of fieldwork. The rest of the book is heavily anecdotal: the authors themselves characterize their work as 'enlightening suggestions and entertaining anecdotes' (3).

A useful edited volume is Newman & Ratliff 2001, which covers the role of native speakers in fieldwork, the issue of learning the field language, the flexibility needed to carry out fieldwork as plans invariably change, and social/emotional aspects of the fieldwork experience (2).

Abbi 2001 is largely aimed at fieldwork in India, but it provides much useful information for researchers working in other regions. Abbi advocates elicitation (the interview method) as the best method of obtaining data, but also recommends a combination of all four of the methods she discusses. These include the observation method, sending questionnaires, and using existing material (84-85). In this respect her approach diverges from that of B, who assumes that the corpus will primarily consist of narratives and spontaneously occurring data like conversation, backed up with elicitation to confirm or deny specific hypotheses arising from the spontaneous data.

Crowley 2007 starts with our responsibility as linguists to document languages to prevent the human loss that the loss of languages entails, so that even when a language dies, at least it is still recorded somewhere. Crowley's account of fieldwork is warm and entertaining, a cheerful anecdotal romp through the vagaries and vicissitudes of fieldwork.

So this is the arena into...