OLAC Record oai:scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu:10125/5164

Metadata
Title:		Plenary: Documenting enduring cultures
Bibliographic Citation:		Cash Cash, Phillip; 2009-03-14; After years of neglect in which linguistics lost sight of the value of empirical field research, new life has finally been breathed into this fundamentally important component of our discipline. But in the process, linguistic fieldwork has ironically lost sight of linguistics! That is, if by linguistics one means the scientific study of language, fieldwork ideology and practice have gone askew. The major movements and individuals that we can thank for the resurgence of interest in linguistic fieldwork all promote (in words or deeds) approaches to field research that fall far short of the tenets of science. Examples of such misguided directions include (a) the endangered languages movement, (b) language documentation, and (c) the “Dixon school.” In my talk, I expose the failings of these non-scientific approaches to linguistic field research and set out what would be required for linguistic fieldwork to qualify as truly scientific and thus be entitled to recognition as an essential subfield within linguistics per se.; Kaipuleohone University of Hawai'i Digital Language Archive;http://hdl.handle.net/10125/5164.
Creator:		Cash Cash, Phillip
Date (W3CDTF):		2009-03-14
Description:		After years of neglect in which linguistics lost sight of the value of empirical field research, new life has finally been breathed into this fundamentally important component of our discipline. But in the process, linguistic fieldwork has ironically lost sight of linguistics! That is, if by linguistics one means the scientific study of language, fieldwork ideology and practice have gone askew. The major movements and individuals that we can thank for the resurgence of interest in linguistic fieldwork all promote (in words or deeds) approaches to field research that fall far short of the tenets of science. Examples of such misguided directions include (a) the endangered languages movement, (b) language documentation, and (c) the “Dixon school.” In my talk, I expose the failings of these non-scientific approaches to linguistic field research and set out what would be required for linguistic fieldwork to qualify as truly scientific and thus be entitled to recognition as an essential subfield within linguistics per se.
		This talk presents findings from my ongoing ethnographic documentary study on how present-day speakers of Cayuse, Nez Perce, and Sahaptin utilize the linguistic practices of their speech communities at a time when their ancestral languages are severely constrained by language endangerment and language shift. I adopt the contemporary concerns of an ethnographically-informed documentary linguistics to show how the linguistic resources of a speech community serve to maintain and transmit culture. Methodologically, this investigation employs digital video to capture and record three interrelated empirical domains of language use, these are: multimodal interaction, interactional structure, and linguistic practices. My key concern in such an approach is to establish links between language use and socially situated communicative interactions as a means to understanding how everyday language use motivates, gives meaning to, or otherwise organizes language, culture, and society. Discovering such linkages is a result of understanding that many traditions are discursive achievements and worthy of documentation. Thus, my own commitment to this type of documentary orientation emerged over the course of my current field research, my speaker status in the speech communities where I conduct my research, as well from the deeper commitments to language and culture found there.
Identifier (URI):		http://hdl.handle.net/10125/5164
Language:		English
Language (ISO639):		eng
Table Of Contents:		5164.JPG
		5164.mp3
Type:		Conference Paper
Type (DCMI):		Sound
OLAC Info
Archive:		Language Documentation and Conservation
Description:		http://www.language-archives.org/archive/ldc.scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu
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OAI Info
OaiIdentifier:		oai:scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu:10125/5164
DateStamp:		2010-11-08
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Search Info
Citation:		Cash Cash, Phillip. 2009. Language Documentation and Conservation.
Terms:		area_Europe country_GB dcmi_Sound iso639_eng