REQUIREMENTS
TEXTS
Briggs, Charles (1986). Learning how to ask. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Required; available at UCSB bookstore, online, or on reserve in Davidson Library and the linguistics library, 3607 South Hall.)
Robben, Antonius C. G. M., & Jeffrey A. Sluka, eds. (2007). Ethnographic fieldwork: An anthropological reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell. (Recommended; available at UCSB bookstore, online, or on reserve in Davidson library and the linguistics library) (EF in syllabus)
A set of course readings available online at ERes (Electronic Reserve). To access the readings you will need a password, listed on the hard copy of the syllabus distributed in class. You can also email me to get the password.
CLASS WEBSITE
The class website contains the most up-to-date information about the course and links to course readings, as well as a bibliography of relevant research and links to other useful websites. Additional copies of the syllabus may be downloaded here; course materials posted on the site are password-protected for copyright purposes. The username and password are listed on the hard copy of the syllabus distributed in class, or you can email me to get them.
RESOURCES FOR SOCIOCULTURAL LINGUISTICS
In addition to materials distributed in class, you may find this website useful for professional socialization into sociocultural linguistics and related fields. The links for graduate students provide resources as well as tips on a range of professional activities that will be relevant to this course and beyond. Please let me know if there are other topics that you'd like to see addressed on the site.
DOING FIELDWORK
Each student will select a local fieldsite for research; for practical reasons it's highly recommended that you choose a site where you already have some kind of connection and/or that is connected to your broader research interests. See separate handouts for guidelines on choosing a site and getting in. Students should plan to spend at least three hours a week (and more if possible) doing research at their field site throughout the quarter and ideally beyond.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CLASS DISCUSSION
Each week our classes will focus on specific issues related to data collection as these arise in class readings and in your fieldwork. A great deal of your learning will happen in the process of reflecting on your fieldwork during class. For this reason, each student is expected to contribute to discussion regularly.
COURSE READINGS AND READING RESPONSES
Because the primary goal of this course is hands-on experience with data collection, the reading assignments are mainly practical in orientation and raise issues of direct relevance to your fieldwork. The syllabus lists a wide range of readings each week, arranged roughly from those that are recommended for all students to more specialized topics. Based on your interests, you should read at least two readings of your choice every week (the shorter readings in the Ethnographic Fieldwork text count as half a reading). Each Monday, you will submit a brief response to the week's reading assignment (1 to 2 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12pt), in which you reflect on the readings in the context of your ongoing fieldwork, as well as past and anticipated future fieldwork experiences if appropriate. Your responses may be as formal or informal as you like as long as they address the readings in some way.
DATA SETS AND ANALYTIC MEMOS
Throughout the quarter you will submit four small data sets that you have collected. In addition, you will submit your reflections on the data in the form of an analytic memo; you need not and should not submit a fully worked-out analysis in these assignments. The four data sets you will submit are: (1) one day's ethnographic fieldnotes, selected from all the fieldnotes you have taken up to that point; (2) photographed documentation of the ethnographic setting; (3) a video- or audio-recorded interview with one to three study participants, with one minute of transcription; and (4) a brief videotaped interaction involving study participants, with one minute of transcription. Collection and submission guidelines for each data set will be distributed separately.
To complete the assignments, you will need to purchase some inexpensive materials. These will be noted on each assignment. However, the following list provides a preview of what you will need so you can plan ahead.
Assignment 1:
- A small notebook for dedicated use for taking fieldnotes. Lab notebooks work well; in some circumstances spiral notebooks or memo pads may be preferable.
Assignment 2:
- Option A: access to a digital camera (not video)
- Option B: purchase of an inexpensive disposable camera plus digital photo development
- All students: CD to submit images
Assignment 3:
- Access to a digital audio recorder (such as a DAT, Mini-Disc, MP3, or solid state recorder) from the Linguistics Lab or another source. My research lab has two that can be borrowed, with advance arrangement.
- All students: CD to submit digitized recording
Assignment 4:
- Option A: access to a videocamera with tripod
- Option B: use of a videocamera from the Linguistics Lab or my research lab, with advance arrangement
- Option C: use of one of the videocameras in Kerr Hall, with advance arrangement
- All students: two mini-DV tapes (one original plus one back-up), available at the bookstore and other sources
- All students: DVD to submit digitized recording
PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS
At the end of the course, you will develop and write up an initial analysis of the various types of data you have collected; alternatively, you may choose to present a discussion of a methodological issue that has arisen during fieldwork. This should be a first approach to a fuller analysis that you can develop on the basis of your existing data or fieldwork experience for conference presentation or publication. Guidelines will be distributed separately.
FINAL PRESENTATION
During finals week, you will give a brief oral presentation of your preliminary analysis, along the lines of an informal conference presentation. Guidelines will be distributed separately.
EVENTS
The following local events are relevant to ethnography and sociocultural linguistics. Additional events will be announced as I learn about them; information is also available on the course website. You are strongly encouraged to participate in as many events as possible.
READING LIST
Alim, H. Samy (2004). How the other half speaks: Ethnosensitivity and the shifting roles of the researcher. In You know my steez: An ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of styleshifting in a Black American speech community. Publication of the American Dialect Society 89. 39-77.
Besnier, Niko (2004). Consumption and cosmopolitanism: Practicing modernity at the second-hand marketplace in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. Anthropological Quarterly 77(1):7-45.
Briggs, Charles L. (2007). Anthropology, interviewing, and communicability in contemporary society. Current Anthropology 48(4):551-580.
Bucholtz, Mary (2007). Variation in transcription. Discourse Studies 9(6):784-808.
Cameron, Deborah, Elizabeth Frazer, Penelope Harvey, Ben Rampton, & Kay Richardson (1993). Ethics, advocacy and empowerment: Issues of method in researching language. Language and Communication 13(2):81-94.
Canagarajah, A. Suresh (1996). From critical research practice to critical research reporting. TESOL Quarterly 30(2):321-330.
DuFon, Margaret A. (2002). Video recording in ethnographic SLA research: Some issues of validity in data collection. Language Learning and Technology 6(1):40-59.
Duranti, Alessandro (1994). Hierarchies in the making: Space, time, and speaking in a fono. In From grammar to politics: Linguistic anthropology in a Western Samoan village. Berkeley: University of California Press. 47-84.
Duranti, Alessandro (1997). Appendix: Practical tips on recording interaction. In Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 340-347.
Eckert, Penelope (1989). Symbols of category membership. In Jocks and Burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York: Teachers College Press. 49-72.
Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, & Linda L. Shaw (1995). In the field: Participating, observing, and jotting notes. In Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 17-38.
Gaudio, Rudolf P. (2001). White men do it too: Racialized (homo)sexualities in postcolonial Hausaland. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1):36-51.
Goldstein, Tara (2001). Researching women's language practices in multilingual workplaces. In Aneta Pavlenko, Adrian Blackledge, Ingrid Piller, & Marya Teutsch-Dwyer, eds., Multilingualism, second language learning, and gender. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 77-101.
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness (1998). Games of stance: Conflict and footing in hopscotch. In Susan M. Hoyle & Carolyn Temple Adger, eds., Kids talk: Strategic language use in later childhood. New York: Oxford University Press. 23-46.
Hak, Tony (2003). Interviewer laughter as an unspecified request for clarification. In Harry van den Berg, Margaret Wetherell, & Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra, eds., Analyzing race talk: Multidisciplinary approaches to the interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 200-214.
Haviland, John B. (1996). Text from talk in Tzotzil. In Michael Silverstein & Greg Urban, eds., Natural histories of discourse . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 45-78.
Hymes, Dell ([1972] 1986). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In John J. Gumperz & Dell Hymes, eds., Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Blackwell. 35-71.
Jacobs-Huey, Lanita (2002). The natives are gazing and talking back: Reviewing the problematics of positionality, voice, and accountability among "native" anthropologists. American Anthropologist 104(3):791-804.
Labov, William (1972). Some principles of linguistic methodology. Language in Society 1:97-120.
Lee, Jung-Eun Janie (2009). “She’s hungarious so she’s Mexican but she’s most likely Indian”: Negotiating ethnic labels in a California junior high school. Pragmatics 19(1):39-63.
Linguistic Society of America (2009). Ethics statement.
Lomax, Helen, & Neil Casey (1998). Recording social life: Reflexivity and video methodology. Sociological Research Online 3(2).
Mendoza-Denton, Norma (2008). La migra. Homegirls: Language and cultural practice among Latina youth gangs. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 10-41.
Oropeza-Escobar, Minerva (2007). Discourse, authority, and mediation in an ethnographic encounter in Eastern Mexico. Pragmatics 17(3):439-460.
Riley, Kathleen C. (2009). Who made the soup?: Socializing the researcher and shaping her data. Language and Communication 29:254-270.
Rymes, Betsy (1996). Naming as social practice: The case of Little Creeper from Diamond Street. Language in Society 25(2):237-260.
Sanjek, Roger (1990). A vocabulary for fieldnotes. In Roger Sanjek, ed., Fieldnotes: The makings of anthropology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 92-121.
Satterlund, Travis, & Christine Mallinson (2006). Practical realities and emotions in field research: The experience of novice fieldworkers. Social Thought and Research 27:123-152.
Schilling-Estes, Natalie (1998). Investigating "self-conscious" speech: The performance register in Okracoke English. Language in Society 27(1):53-83.
Slembrouck, Stef (2004). Reflexivity and the research interview: Habitus and social class in parents' accounts of children in public care. Critical Discourse Studies 1(1):91-112.
Thorne, Barrie (1980). "You still takin' notes?": Fieldwork and problems of informed consent. Social Problems 27(3):284-297.
Wertheim, Suzanne A. (2009). Who's using who?: The fieldworker as documenter and tool of language revalorization. Language and Communication 29:271-285.
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1997). Between friends: Gender, peer group structure, and bilingualism in urban Catalonia. Language in Society 26(4):533-560. (Optional background reading for November 5 Linguistics/Identity Studies talk)