Making progess

A sorely overlooked aspect of fieldwork is the physical conditions under which the scientist must work. Even though I am in a semi-urban environment with such luxuries as electricity, internet access close by and nice toilets, I still endure the tropic hazards of insect bites which are particularly unpleasant for me being as I am allergic to most insect poisons including mosquitoes and ants. Also, I am just getting over a nasty case of stomach flu -a constant risk for the delicate Northern European stomach I suppose. It is interesting to observe, that, as far as I know, Hondurans who go to Denmark or the US hardly ever have stomach issues - but then, they struggle with other hazards such as the biting cold in winter and even sometimes in summer.

It rained and stormed for a while because it is now officially the rainy season - but so far it has stopped, knock on wood, and work is progressing - it becomes more difficult to work when it rains because 1) we must work indoors where the heat is unbearable and 2) recordings become distorted - so I'm a happy fieldworker as far as weather is concerned.

I am currently looking to recruit a person to transcribe and translate recordings independently - I figure it cant hurt; if the person just does a half decent job it will be useful data in some way. First, this person must own their own computer because I don't think I have funds for buying one at this point, and second the person must be using the language on a daily basis - those to factors rolled into one person are not that easy to come by, but probably more so here than in other places where indigenous languages are spoken.

Recording texts

I am about 3 weeks into this year's fieldseason and my main efforts at this point are centered around text collection. So far we have recorded a whole bunch of both mythical and personal narratives and quite a bit of conversation. On a typical day we transcribe and translate about 10 min of text but I expect that this rate will accelerate as both I and my main speaker assistant get more trained. Afternoons are spent recording more texts and analyzing texts that have been transcribed and translated. I want to move into other genres such as task description where interlocutors perform a task while explaining what they are doing. I also want to translate songs. I might also do some of the Max Planck stimulus games for specific purposes.

2013 fieldwork season

A new fieldwork season is just about to begin for me as I head to Honduras for the second time as part of my PhD research on the Garifuna language.

So many questions, both grammar related and methodological, are running around in my head (and cutting in front of each other in the line because they all want to be dealt with first). I would have liked to include a sample of these questions here, but they are still so disorderly and vague (and completely rude) that I cannot possibly know where to begin - I will get back to you on this crucial matter. 

The other important matter which is on my mind right now is whether I will find that the same people I worked with last are available to work with me once again. Although I do plan to expand somewhat the group of Garifuna speakers to consult this time to enhance representativity in terms of age, gender, occupation etc.

More on these matters and more when I have been at it for a little while...