| Table of Contents |
|---|
...
Introduction
...
When you’re working with language speakers to collect language information, you are doing elicitation. This is a shortened version of a the Elicitation guide for collecting language information that that will guide you through the basics of working with language speakers to elicit the best audio and most useful language information possible.
...
Has your speaker given Informed consent to to participate in recording?
How comfortable is your speaker? Are they going to feel the need to shift around, causing unintentional background noise? Are they sitting somewhere that they will be able to sit for long periods of time?
What is your speaker wearing? Are they wearing comfortable clothes? Are they wearing loose clothes or jewelry that will move or brush up against other things, causing unintentional background noise?
...
How long will you be able to record for? Will you foreseeably be interrupted?
| Info |
|---|
It is best practice to record one continuous audio file. |
...
General elicitation information
...
As accurate as possible
As thorough as possible. This is especially important when it comes to collecting verbs (action words)
Useful for language learners. If you open up an English dictionary, you can find all sorts of words that aren’t used on a daily basis. It’s great to collect those things in the long term but your priority should be useful information
| Tip |
|---|
It’s good to remember to ask yourself: “Is this a useful thing to say?” |
...
Every language is made up of certain types of words. In order to be accurate about the language information you enter into FirstVoices, you need to have a basic understanding of some linguistic terms. Here are the word classes used in FirstVoices with an explanation of each.
Nouns
These words are people, places, things and ideas.
Example: woman, Vancouver, chair, love
Pronouns
Pronouns are words used in place of a noun, usually referring to people. For example, David is a noun. David is sleeping. But you could also say He is sleeping. The word “he” is a pronoun because it is used in the place of the noun “David”.
Verbs
Verbs are the action words of the sentence. The action might be physical or mental.
Example: run, jump, cook, eat, think, love
Subjects are the nouns that are doing the action in the sentence.
Objects are the nouns that are undergoing or receiving the action in the sentence.
Adjectives and Adverbs
These are describing words.
Adjectives describe nouns. Example: bright, hot, cold, skinny, tall, red, blue
Adverbs describe verbs. Example: quickly, slowly, carefully, never, always
Prepositions and Postpositions (Adpositions)
These words usually describe a location or time and they go together with a noun. (They might also be part of the verb.)
Pre-positions come before or precede the noun
Post-positions come after the noun.
Example: in, under, on top of, up, down, with, for, to, during
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are words that join two sentences, phrases or clauses together.
Examples: and, but, or
Interjections
Interjections are exclamations.
Examples: oh, ah, ow, wow, dear me, yikes
Swear words are generally categorized as interjections.
Particles
Particle refers to a leftover category of words. First, try to see if a word fits in one of the categories above. If not, you might be dealing with a particle.
Particles can be words on their own or they can be part of a verb (or other word class) like a prefix, suffix or infix.
...
Verbs (action words) are THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of most languages and this is especially true when it comes to Indigenous languages spoken in B.C. Whenever you elicit any verb, you should try to get as many forms of the verb as you can.
If a speaker says something and you ask what it means, chances are she or he will say something like “eating, that means eating”. But actually there is a lot more information in the word. Who is eating? When are they eating? There are lots of different ways of saying the same verb. The set of different ways is called a paradigm. It is really important that you try to collect a full paradigm for each verb. This is what we mean:
Present tense paradigm for “to dance”
Form | Example |
1st person singular | I am dancing |
2nd person singular | You are dancing |
3rd person singular | She/he/it is dancing |
1st person plural | We are dancing |
1st person dual | We (just two of us) are dancing |
1st person inclusive | We (me and you) are dancing |
1st person exclusive | We (me and someone else or others but not you) are dancing |
2nd person plural | You guys are dancing |
2nd person dual | You guys (just two of you) are dancing |
3rd person plural | They are dancing |
| Note |
|---|
Make sure that you and the speaker you are working with clearly understand what you are eliciting or else you can get into a “who’s on first, what’s on second” situation! For example, if you ask a speaker how to say that you want the form for “you are dancing” they might think you are asking them to say “I am dancing”. |
| Tip |
|---|
More information about other paradigms, as well as more detailed information about advanced categories, meaning categories and more, read the full elicitation guide |
...