30.1K
Downloads
46
Episodes
A podcast about linguistic fieldwork, where seasoned fieldworkers share their stories from the field.
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
Tuesday Oct 31, 2023
This month's episode is with Dr. Kate Lindsey. Kate is a professor of linguistics and co-director of the Structures of Under-Researched Languages lab at Boston University. Her research has both theoretical and documentary applications. Her theoretical work focuses on the analysis of underspecification and variation in phonological systems supported primarily by field data. Her dissertation utilized original data from eleven months of fieldwork with Ende speakers of Limol village, Papua New Guinea to explore the interaction of so-called ghost elements pervasive in Ende phonology. Current research projects include extended fieldwork in the South Fly area of Papua New Guinea to support the first reference grammar of Ende, a typological study of the Pahoturi River language family, and theoretical analyses of vowel harmony and phonological reduplication.
Things mentioned in this episode
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
Thursday Sep 28, 2023
Field Notes is back for its fifth and final season! Season five's inagural episode is with Patrick Heinrich from the Ca' Foscari University of Venice. Patrick received his Masters degree in Linguistics and Japanese Studies in 1998 from Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf. He completed his PhD in Japanese Studies in 2002 at Duisburg University. He is a sociolinguist who has worked extensively in the Ryukyuan archipelago, and has written many publications on language ideology, language shift, language reclamation, language planning and policy, and language and well-being. Along with Shinsho Miyara and Michinori Shimoji, he is the co-editor of the Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages (2015). He is also co-editor of Language Crisis in the Ryukyus (2014), along with Mark Anderson.
Things mentioned in this episode:
- Ryukyuan language family
- Uchinaaguchi (Okinawan) language
- Miyako language
- Dunan (Yonaguni) language
- Yaeyama language
- Amami languages
- Educated Not to Speak Our Language: Language Attitudes and Newspeakerness in the Yaeyaman Language(Hammine, 2020)
- Language Shift in the Ryukyu Islands (Anderson, 2019)
- Byron Fija on Ryukyuan Languages in Uchinaaguchi
- Ladino language
- Yonaguni film
- Yonaguni Fotografia Europea photo project (Anush Hamzehian and Vittorio Mortarotti- more info found here and catalogue found here)
- Rice Island, Satellite Island, Border Island: Yonaguni Across Time (Heinrich, 2021)
- Patrick on ResearchGate
- Madoka Hammine on ResearchGate
If you are interested in Ryukyuan linguistics, check out previous Field Notes episodes with Prof. Michinori Shimoji and Madoka Hammine:
Wednesday May 31, 2023
Wednesday May 31, 2023
This month's very special episode is with Myfany Turpin, an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Myfany has been working on Australian Aboriginal songs and languages since 1996. Her research interests include the relationship between language and music, especially of lesser-known cultures; and identifying ways to support the continuation of endangered languages and performance arts. Her work examines Aboriginal song-poetry and its relationship to spoken languages and the documentation of the Kaytetye language and encyclopaedic knowledge, an Arandic language of Central Australia.
Things mentioned in this episode:
- ABC Radio National episodes
- Project page
- Pantjiti McKenzie-lu Inma Kulkalanyatjara Wangkanyi Pantjiti McKenzie talks about the ceremony ‘Kulkalanya’
- Inma Kulkalanya Wangkanyi. Talking about the ceremony ‘Kulkalanya’. Iluwanti Mervyn, Tinpulya Ken, Josephine Mick and Renee Kulitja
- Buried in the Sand: Digging deep into Gudjal language and culture (Toksave: Culture Talks)
- Kaytetye recordings (Hale)
- Thangkerne birds
- indigemoji
- Myfany on Google Scholar
- Myfany on ResearchGate
From June 2023, Field Notes will be taking a summer break, so look for new regular episodes coming September 2023. Bonus mini episode content (on Patreon) will continue as usual (throughout the summer) for patrons pledging $5/month and above. If you would like to support Field Notes on Patreon, you can do so here.
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
Wednesday Apr 19, 2023
This month's episode is with Nicholas Welch from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Nicholas is the Canada Research Chair in Change, Adaptation and Revitalization of Aboriginal Languages and Assistant Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Victoria. His Ph.D. is from the University of Calgary and his dissertation was entitled: "The bearable lightness of being: The encoding of coincidence in two- copula languages". He has done extensive research on Dene and Algonquian morphosyntax, and has also done language revitalization work with languages of Labrador. In addition to teaching and research, Nicholas also runs the YouTube channel, Labrador Languages Preservation Laboratory (LLPL).
Things mentioned in this episode:
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
This month's very special episode is with Michelle Kamigaki-Baron. Michelle is a PhD student in the department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. She was born and raised in Hawai’i into a family of coffee plantation laborers from Honaunau, Hawai’i. Her research primarily involves speech production and perception, how these processes are changed in the context of bilingualism or bidialectalism of languages that exist in diglossia, and the continuous nature of language. She works primarily with the Secwepemc community in BC with speakers of the Secwepemctsín language and also with her own community in Hawai’i with speakers of Pidgin and ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i. In her free time Michelle enjoys swimming in the ocean, spending time with friends and family, eating out, thrifting, and trying to kidnap her dog frens.
Things mentioned in this episode:
Friday Dec 30, 2022
Friday Dec 30, 2022
This month’s episode is with Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo from the University of Colorado Boulder. Ambrocio earned his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin in 2021. He earned his MA in 2014 at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS), Mexico. He is a documentary and descriptive linguist whose research focuses on the syntax and semantics of the Zapotec (Otomanguean) languages of southern Mexico. He has also worked on adjacent areas of phonology and morphology and has broad interests across all the linguistic subfields, including especially discourse analysis and historical linguistics.
He promotes work on indigenous languages by native speakers and members of heritage communities. He himself is a native speaker of Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec and he has collaborated with other Zapotec and non-Zapotec colleagues to develop academic and revitalization materials.
Things mentioned in this episode:
Friday Nov 25, 2022
Friday Nov 25, 2022
Today's episode is with Jessica Coon, an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages.
Much of Jessica’s work has focused on Mayan languages, in particular Ch’ol (a language of southern Mexico) and Chuj (a language of Guatemala). She has also researched Mi’gmaq, an Algonquian language of eastern Canada. In addition to theoretical work on these languages, She has worked to build collaborations with the communities of speakers who are working to document, promote, and revitalize these languages. At McGill, Jessica co-leads the Montreal Under-documented Languages and Linguistics Lab. She is also the current director of the Indigenous Studies and Community Engagement Initiative (ISCEI).
Jessica was also a consultant on the film Arrival, which features a field linguist as the main protagonist, played by Amy Adams.
Things mentioned in this episode:
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
This month's episode is with Eric W. Campbell, an Associate Professor of linguistics at University of California, Santa Barbara. Eric received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. Eric is a field linguist who is interested in all levels of linguistic structure and historical linguistics. Eric approaches language in its social and cultural context, focusing on less-studied languages, especially the Otomanguean languages spoken in Mexico and California.
Things mentioned in this episode:
- Zapotec languages
- Purépecha language
- Chatino languages
- Zenzontepec Chatino
- Otomanguean languages
- Mayan languages
- Mixtec language
- San Martín Duraznos Mixtec (ELAR Deposit)
- The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman (1997)
- Hmong language
- MICOP
- Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
- Transient Waves (Eric’s band)
- Mexican Indigenous Languages Promotion and Advocacy project (MILPA)
- Radio Indigena 94.1 FM
- Ep 27: Field Notes Live Show with Hilaria Cruz on Field Linguistics & Chatino
- Let's Learn Mixteco (Carmen Hernández Martínez)
- Let's Learn Mixteco Youtube channel (Carmen Hernández Martínez)
- Sà'án Sàvǐ ñà Yukúnanǐ (Jeremías Salazar & Guillem Belmar)
- Comachuen P'orhe Youtube channel (Martín Gabriel Ruiz)
Thursday Sep 29, 2022
Thursday Sep 29, 2022
This month's guest is Anthony C. Woodbury, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Woodbury has taught in the UT Linguistics Department since 1980, serving as its chair for nine years. He was elected Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2017, and Vice-President and President of the Society for 2022 and 2023. Woodbury's research focuses on the Indigenous languages of the Americas, and how they reveal general as well as historic linguistic diversity and creativity on the parts of their speakers. He began work with Unangan-Yupik-Inuit languages in 1974, especially Cup’ik in Chevak, Alaska, and in 2003 he became engaged, together with a cohort of then-graduate students, in the documentation and description of Chatino, an Otomanguean language group of Oaxaca, Mexico. Themes in his writing have included tone and prosody; morphology, syntax, and historical linguistics; ethnopoetics and speech play and verbal art; and language documentation, revitalization, and the role of linguistics in the struggle for human rights and intellectual justice, especially under conditions of language shift that is directly or indirectly coerced. He is also co-director, with Patience Epps, of the digital Archive for Indigenous Languages of Latin America at UT's Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. He now centers his teaching on Ph.D. and other training in linguistics for speakers of Indigenous languages of the Americas.
Things mentioned in this episode:
5. Sugt’stun (Pacific Yupik) language
6. Cugtun (Central Alaskan Yupik) language
7. Nora England Oral History Project
8. Anthony C. Woodbury on Google Scholar and Academia
11. Superlinguo Blog
Recommended Reading:
Anthony C. Woodbury (2003). Defining documentary linguistics. In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language Documentation and Description, vol 1. London: SOAS. pp. 35-51 http://www.elpublishing.org/docs/1/01/ldd01_05.pdf
Anthony Woodbury, Compiler/Editor. 1984. Cev’armiut qanemciit qulirait=llu: Eskimo narratives and tales from Chevak, Alaska. Told by Tom Imgalrea, Jacob Nash, Thomas Moses, Leo Moses, and Mary Kokrak; translated by Leo Moses and Anthony Woodbury. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska. 88 pp. [Cup’ik texts with linguistic and cultural introduction.] Text Audio
Emiliana Cruz & Anthony C. Woodbury. Collaboration in the context of teaching, scholarship, and language revitalization: Experience from the Chatino Language Documentation Project. Language Documentation & Conservation 8: 262-286. Special issue: Keren Rice & Bruna Franchetto, (guest eds.), Community Collaboration in the Americas. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24607
Tuesday Aug 30, 2022
Tuesday Aug 30, 2022
Welcome to a new season of Field Notes! This month, Claire Bowern is on the pod for Season Four's inaugural episode. Claire Bowern is a historical linguist whose research is centered around language change and language documentation in Indigenous Australia. She received her BA in LInguistics and Classics from the Australian National University, and her PhD in linguistics from Harvard University. She works with speakers of endangered languages, with archival sound and print materials, and uses computational and phylogenetic methods. She is currently the editor of the journal Diachronica. She is a professor in Linguistics at Yale University, and is also the author of Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide (2008).
Things mentioned in this episode:
- Bardi language
- Pama–Nyungan language
- Ngalia language
- Australian Aboriginal English
- Australian Kriol
- River in Kullilli (with Toby Adams)
- Kullilli Ngulkana
- Field Notes Ep 19: Dreamtime Narratives & Language Sustainability with Dorothea Hoffmann
- MalakMalak language
-
Claire on Twitter: @anggarrgoon