Language DocumentationClaire BowernYale UniversityLSA Summer Institute: 2013

Week 2: Elicitation

ELICITATION

1) Types of Elicitation2) Suggestions for structuring sessions3) Suggestions for structuring a field trip

Types of elicitation• Structured• Translation• Grammaticality judgments, sentence checking• Picture identification tasks (e.g. flora/fauna identification, color chip

naming)• > direct relationship between the task prompt and the language outcome

• Semi-structured• Vernacular definitions• Language games (e.g. card games, map tasks)• Visual prompt tasks (videos, frog stories, etc)• > task prompt guides the language outcome but speakers have more

freedom in their responses.• Unstructured• Narratives• Conversation

STRUCTURED ELICITATION

Types of structured elicitation• Translation• lexical elicitation• surveys• …

Class example:• How would you design a test to see whether the language is

ergative?• What sort of questions would you ask?• (Use me as the consultant for Bardi to work out the Bardi case

alignment.)

Making up good sentences• Work out what you want to test. • Don’t try to test too much at once.• Do several sessions on the same material (e.g. one

exploratory, several follow-ups)• Don’t use weird vocab (it’s a distraction)• Pros and cons of using the same small vocab set.• priming• discourse factors• less distracting• may increase translation errors?

Grammaticality judgments• Ways of testing what are possible constructions in the

language.• Ways of checking your hypotheses for how the grammar

works (e.g. can your theory distinguish real sentences from impossible ones)?

• Bound up in theoretical issues about the object of study (what people do say, or what they can say?)

Ways of asking• Can you say…• Can I say…• Is this a good sentence?• Is it ok if I say…• Does it sound right if I say…• If someone said … what would you think?• I made up this sentence but I don’t know if it’s something a

real speaker would say…• I think Bessie said this … but I don’t know if I wrote it down

right.

Other ‘experimental’ tasks• fill in the blanks• arrange the words in a sentence• put the word in a sentence• minimal permutations of a sentence

Example: hybrid objects

Advantages• Targeted to particular constructions; lets you fill in holes in the

documentation quickly• Vital for types of data collection that need standard responses

(e.g. intonation research)• Allows the linguist to plan; reduces the ‘unknowns’ (e.g. can

use familiar vocabulary)

Disadvantages• Priming• Might not get natural translations• Might not get accurate translations• Some types of structures are hard to get with translation

equivalents (e.g. getting passive examples if the elicitation language doesn’t have passives)

• Can be boring for consultant

Things to watch out for• Don’t have too many (or too few) examples.• People new to elicitation planning tend to vary too much or

too little across the sentences.• Varying too little restricts the utility of the data.• Varying too much makes it hard to generalize

• Priming!• Leading questions!• Nonsense data (confusing your consultant)• Rushing your consultant (not giving them time to answer)• Boring your consultant• Some judgments are fragile

Training the consultant?• Keeping the consultant in the dark about the purpose of the

session versus clueing them in and getting their insights• Need to distinguish between the language data/judgments and

the consultant’s analysis.• Some people are better at this than others.

Examples:• MPI field manuals: http://fieldmanuals.mpi.nl/• EUROTYP questionnaires:

http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/tools-at-lingboard/questionnaire/eurotyp_description.php

TAKING FIELDNOTES

By hand or on computer?• By hand:• slower to write than type [unless using IPA]• probably means retyping notes later• might be hard for consultants to read your writing• interlinearizing, callouts, etc, are faster• harder to accidentally delete something.

• On the computer:• keyboard noise?• screen as barrier?• Easier to back up

• Try both

Information to include:• Date• Consultant’s name• Number the pages• Language name• Your name

Fieldnote exercise• examine the following scans of notes.

Some questions to think about

• Do you know what language the notes are about?• Can you easily work out when these notes were written,

who the consultant is, and what the notes are about?• Can you tell whose notes they are?• Can you read the handwriting?• Can you tell which words line up with which glosses?• Can you interpret any non-standard symbols?• If pages fell out of the notebook, would you be able to

put them back in the right place in the right order?• Can you easily tell if there is associated media (e.g. a

related tape)?

Questions: cont.• When you cross something out, can you still read the rest of the word?• When you write over a letter/word, can you tell which is the right

representation and which is the wrong one?• When you have two alternative transcriptions, can you tell which is

right, or if they are both legitimate variants?• Can you tell what is a deduction on your part and what was a

metacomment made by your consultant?• Can you tell what you need to check and what you know is right?• Do all the diacritics you’ve used show up if the notes are copied or

scanned?• Will you be able to find crucial examples again?

• Will you be able to read what you wrote if you come back to it in a year (e.g. will you be able to tell whether you wrote a vs o)?