General provisions

The course is given as a freestanding course.

Entry requirements

Fulfilment of the requirements for a Bachelor's degree with a language subject as the main field of study.

Learning outcomes

After completion of the course in order to earn a passing grade the student will be able to

- Describe the purpose and basic theory and method of linguistic fieldwork, as well as ethical issue;

- plan and carry out recording of natural speech of consultants in the field, and carry out linguistic analysis of adequate quality;

- process digital audio files with the help of specialised software for the purposes of linguistic analysis, archiving, etc;

- perform basic phonetic and phonological, morphological, syntactic and discourse/conversational analytical transcriptions and analyses of recorded material.

Content

Linguistic fieldwork is where everything comes together for the student of linguistics: this course will call upon everything you have learnt about the linguistic analysis of human language and help you to reconcile this with the reality of language "in the wild". In class we will work together with a speaker of an unidentified language and get some experience of describing aspects of linguistic structure, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. These fieldwork sessions will alternate with theoretical work on planning and organising linguistic description, and practical issues of fieldwork safety, ethics, equipment, archiving, and funding.

Instruction

The teaching consists of lectures and tutorials. The student's own learning activities are crucial for the completion of the course.

The students are expected to do most of the work independently.

Assessment

Examination is conducted through the student's own production of language data and through transcription and analysis of this data. Information concerning this is made available at the start of the course.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.