Fieldwork “at home”:Urban sociolinguistic fieldwork

Devyani Sharma

Queen Mary, University of London

Devyani Sharma 2Fieldwork at home

Overview

• Introduction why sociolinguistics? why sociolinguistic fieldwork? why sociolinguistic fieldwork in urban environments?

• Theoretical question choice of methodology

• Challenges of local, urban fieldwork sampling and entering the community interviewing and recording classifying individuals ethics and community feedback

• Examples from current project interspersed

Devyani Sharma 3Fieldwork at home

Why sociolinguistics?

Sociolinguistics tries to answer questions such as:

• What does language variation tell us about social structure? class/ethnic relations, gender roles, friendship hierarchies

• How does a person develop and signal a particular identity? network position, variable usage

• How do we create meaning in interaction? styles of interaction, inter-cultural miscommunication

• What ideologies do we hold about language and why? standardisation, overt/covert prestige, linguistic profiling

• How should we design language policies? bilingualism/dialects in schools, linguistic minority groups

Devyani Sharma 4Fieldwork at home

Why fieldwork?

Different data are needed to answer each question:

• Macro social structure recordings of how different groups speak (quantitative)

• Individual behaviour understanding of social networks (qualitative) recordings of conversational interactions (quan/qual)

• Ideologies individual commentaries (qualitative) cultural representations, e.g. in media (qualitative)

• Minority communities stages of acquisition or loss (quan/qual)

Devyani Sharma 5Fieldwork at home

Why in urban environments?

(Traditional dialect studies vs. urban dialect studies)

• Urban contact situations help us understand: who leads linguistic change (e.g. women, teenagers) ‘critical age’ for plasticity in language learning whether social motivations can ‘trump’ cognitive constraints

• London: diverse languages and cultures experiencing similar contact situations different language and literacy trajectories new ethnicities and identities extensive misrepresentation of minority groups in public discourse need for informed planning and policy

Devyani Sharma 6Fieldwork at home

Questions methods

Current project: ‘Dialect development and style in a diasporic community’ ESRC 2008-2010

(co-investigators: Ben Rampton & Roxy Harris, KCL; RAs: Lavanya Sankaran, Pam Knight)

• Hyp 1: Adult dialects are fixed. (Chambers 1995)

Method: Quantitative data from India-born Gen1.

• Hyp 2: Children acquire the local, not parents’, dialect. (Chambers 1995)

Method: Quantitative data from British-born Gen2-3.

• RQ 3: Why do exceptions arise – choice or unconscious exposure? Method: Compare individuals according to networks, class, situation etc.

• RQ 4: Do members of the community (incl. L2 speakers) develop multipleproficiencies simultaenously?

Method: Recordings from individuals in different speaking situations

• RQ 5: What attitudes accompany dialect variation? Method: Interview commentaries, media/public discourse

Devyani Sharma 7Fieldwork at home

Challenges of local, urban fieldwork

• Sampling: How to select participants

• Entering the community: Locating participants

• Interviewing and recording

• Measuring and classifying social factors

Devyani Sharma 8Fieldwork at home

Challenges: selecting participants

• Sampling: How to select participants who? (random, stratified, judgement, network, CoP,

individual) how many? (Labov 1966: 88, Trudgill 1974: 60) driven by research questions

• Our project initial focus on families demographic samples (feasibility) initial focus on Sikh shift to Punjabi (emic/etic) friend-of-a-friend method, with focus on family clusters

Gen1 (recent) Gen1 (long stay) Gen2 (young) Gen2 (mid-aged) Gen3 (young)

m f m f m f m f m f

Working Class 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Middle Class 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Devyani Sharma 9Fieldwork at home

Challenges: locating participants

• Entering the community self-presentation (too casual? too formal?)

suspicion of researchers (clarify not government/journalist; emphasise benefits of sociolingusitic research for the community)

explore the community (radio station, restaurants, shopping; avoid officials as first contact)

• Working with participants how much should the participant know about your goals? how much time can a researcher expect with a participant? be prepared with interview modules and charged recorders! be prepared for rejections, cancellations, indefinite postponements…

(a particular danger of local research where you are perceived as always available)

Devyani Sharma 10Fieldwork at home

Challenges: recording people

• The Observer’s Paradox“the aim of linguistic research in the community must be to find out how people talk when they are not being systematically observed; yet we can only obtain these data by systematic observation.”

(Labov 1972: 209)

no surreptitious recording special case: L2 and minority language speakers

• Types of recorded data uses and limitations of survey questionnaires semi-structured sociolinguistic interviews bilingualism, biographical, and network information interviews individual vs. pair recordings interactional data (researcher present vs. absent) field notes

Devyani Sharma 11Fieldwork at home

Example: pair recording

Lavanya: (what language did you speak in nursery?)

Rita: in nursery

did i used to talk in nursery

i used to chew on my brush in nursery

Friend: boys used to talk to you

Rita: oy shut your face=

Friend: =(xxx)

Rita: = tu shut up ho ja right tu shut up ho ja hhhehhehe you shut up become

Friend: (xxx)

Rita: is that why you’re my best friend innit

Friend: yeah

Rita: salibitch

Lavanya : hheh so she was there in nursery with you

Rita: no psh: thank the lord

i’d have been pretty psychologically disturbed

Devyani Sharma 12Fieldwork at home

Challenges: Classifying individuals

• Networks

• Class in situations of migration failure of standard govt measures (Goldthorpe 2000)

ambiguity of simultaneous, distinct class statuses – UK and India intra-Gen1 drop in class status Gen1-Gen2 rise in class status

• Bilingualism frequency (individual’s estimation + checked in self-recordings) contexts (have to be adapted to particular community)

Devyani Sharma 13Fieldwork at home

Example of bilingualism

Name

GP gen

GPs

Aunties

Mother

Father

Sibs

Spouse

Early Life

Friends

Kids

Work

Counting

Writing

Univ.

Grandchildren

AVERAGE

Participant 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.75 0.75 0.5 0.75 0.5 0.98

Participant 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.25 1 0 0.75 - 0.87

Participant 3 1 1 1 1 1 0.75 0.5 1 0.75 0.5 0.5 0.25 0 0.25 - 0.73

Participant 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.5 0.5 0 - 0.5 0 0 0.5 - 0.67

Participant 5 1 1 1 1 - 0.25 0 0.25 0.25 - 0 0 0 0 - 0.43

Participant 6 1 1 1 0.75 0.75 0 0 0.25 0.25 - 0 0.25 0.25 0 - 0.46

Participant 7 1 1 1 0.75 0.5 0 0.25 0.25 0 0.25 0 0 0 - - 0.42

Participant 8 1 1 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.25 0.75 0.25 0 0.25 0 0.25 0 0 - 0.46

Participant 9 1 1 0.75 0.5 0.5 0.25 0.25 0.25 0 0.25 0 0 0 0 - 0.37

Participant 10 1 0.75 0.75 0.25 0.75 0.25 0.25 0 0.25 - 0.25 0.25 0.25 0 - 0.42

Participant 11 1 0.5 0.75 0.25 0.25 0 - 0 0.25 - 0.5 0.25 0.25 0 - 0.36

Participant 12 1 0.75 0.5 0.25 0.25 0.25 0 0 0.25 - 0 0.25 0.25 - - 0.34

Participant 13 0.75 0.75 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0 - 0.15

Participant 14 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 - - 0.11

Participant 15 0.25 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 - 0 0 0 - - 0.03

Devyani Sharma 14Fieldwork at home

Ethics and community feedback

• Ethics sensitivity to community norms revelations in interviews

• Community feedback offering help, e.g. tutoring, advice on written material radio and TV focus on useful linguistic issues, e.g. raising children bilingual non-linguistic issues, e.g. women’s problems discussed in interviews

Devyani Sharma 15Fieldwork at home

Advantages of fieldwork “at home”

• Long-term researcher experience of broader community familiarity with public discourses, policies, local practices need for very local historical knowledge, e.g. schools, migration danger of inattention to sub-community (emic) practices/beliefs/norms

• Comparative analysis of different sub-communities

• Longer term data collection

• Follow-up with participants is straightforward checking details or re-recording subsequent data gathering that derives from initial research potential for longitudinal panel (same participants) data

Devyani Sharma 16Fieldwork at home

References

• Cited Chambers, Jack. 1995. Sociolinguistic Theory. Blackwell. Goldthorpe, J. H. 2000. On Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press. Trudgill, Peter. 1974. The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

• General texts on sociolinguistic fieldwork Bayley, Robert and Ceil Lucas, eds. 2007. Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories,

Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press. Johnstone, Barbara. 2000. Qualitative Methods in Sociolinguistics. Sage Publications. Milroy, Lesley, and Matt Gordon. 2003. Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation.

Blackwell.