1. INTRODUCTION. Academic linguists working to document and describe minoritized and endangered languages share with speech community members a devotion to the language of study. For the academic, language provides a unique window into cognition and the capacity of the human mind. For the speech community member, language represents cultural heritage and, for many, a tie to place and a sense of identity. Though their ultimate goals may differ, both have a vested interest in the documentation, description, and preservation of lesser-spoken languages as a way of perpetuating global linguistic and cultural diversity and/or maintaining ties to heritage.¹

As a graduate student in theoretical linguistics, I’ve felt pressure from academic advisors to subjugate “applied” community-based work in favor of descriptive academic work. It has been suggested that time spent meeting speech community needs will diminish my academic productivity, and that preservation-focused work should be postponed until after I’ve achieved tenure. However, I would rather not wait to do this type of work. More important, members of the speech community with whom I work are unwilling to be subject to academic research that is of little immediate benefit to them. Furthermore, I believe the products of collaboration will be better, academically, than work I might do alone. Projects described in this paper are motivated by my desire to meet the needs of both communities in which I work—speech and academic—in a way that is collaborative, mutually beneficial, reciprocal, non-exploitative, and that draws on the strengths of all participants in this endeavor. I describe several cooperatively designed, community-based projects that seek to meet the two communities’ shared needs. This is followed by more general recommendations for fieldworkers interested in employing a collaborative, community-based fieldwork methodology.

Establishing and maintaining the types of relationships necessary to a successful collaborative endeavor takes time. The projects described in this paper seek to build an atmosphere of collaboration early on, so that speech community members and academic linguists are working together toward mutually defined goals in a way that builds trust. This effort is greatly aided when the academic linguist spends time in a community in some other capacity before embarking on linguistic fieldwork. Taking time to get to know members of the community ahead of time can help to identify potential partners and can ease community member suspicions that one will be conducting research for the sole benefit of the academic.

2. BACKGROUND. Often, fieldwork in linguistics, like that in other disciplines, is conducted in service of the academic community and the individual linguist. Cameron et al. (1992) describe this as an ethical model of research, while Czaykowska-Higgins (2007) terms it linguist-focused. Within these models, the “helicopter researcher” (Lutter 2007) descends upon a community, collects data from “naive informants,” and analyzes it in support of whatever theories s/he is trying to prove or disprove. People are treated as “data generators,” and little attention is paid to their needs or desires. Although these models continue to be employed, there is increasing pressure from politically aware communities to prevent researchers from ignoring community needs (cf. Deloria 1988; Smith 1999). In addition, researchers have proposed collaborative methodological frameworks to meet these needs (e.g., the empowerment model, Cameron et al. 1992, 1997; Community-University Research Alliances, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) 2007; Community-Based Language Research, Czaykowska-Higgins 2007). Fieldworkers have been advocating the use of such models (cf. Craig 1993; Grinevald 1998; Mithun 2001; Rice 2004; Dwyer 2006), however, fewer articles describe collaborative projects and their outcomes (notable exceptions are found in Hinton and Hale eds. 2001; Stebbins 2003; Wilkins 1992). Projects described in this paper represent the practical application of an empowerment model of fieldwork as defined by Cameron et al. (1992:22) as research done on, for, and with social science research communities.

Fieldwork, here, refers to any documentary or descriptive work the linguist does in situ–that is, work done in the community in which the target language is spoken. Speech community refers to the group of target-language community members. Where the language is endangered, members of the speech community may be at all levels of fluency—from native-speaking elders who use the language as their daily means of communication, to children who have no fluency in the target language but who are nonetheless ethnically and culturally members of the speech community. Target language refers to the language of focus, often endangered, minoritized, or under-studied. The academic fieldworker and speech community members may communicate in some other lingua franca.

Based on the empowerment model advocated here, it is assumed that the academic linguist, who may or may not be a member of the speech community, works in cooperation with one or more speech community members. The prototypical situation is of an outsider academic working with members of a speech community that is not his or her own. His or her community-member partners may or may not have had access to formal schooling,² but are typically native speakers of the target language with some interest in linguistics. This paper assumes a speech community of minority and/or endangered language speakers, which includes members who are interested in documenting, preserving, and revitalizing the target language, but may lack the tools, training, and access to materials necessary to conduct research projects in the absence of outside help. Academic linguist (AL) will be used in reference to the outsider linguist, and speech community linguist (SCL) will be used to refer to speech community members with whom the outsider academic collaborates. SCLs are active in all aspects of the collaborative research endeavor including project planning, data collection, processing, and analysis. An AL may work with one or more SCLs on different aspects of a project. At the heart of this collaborative, community-based methodology is an emphasis on the four Rs:  respect, responsibility, relationships, and reciprocity (Rice 2004). It is assumed that the relationship between ALs and the SCLs involves negotiation through all aspects of a project or projects, which ideally is situated in the context of a long-term commitment to working with a particular community.

2.1 SPEECH COMMUNITY. Kari’nja,³ a member of the Cariban language family, is classified as endangered by the UNESCO Red Book (2003). There are an estimated 10,226 Kari’nja speakers worldwide (Gordon 2005). Three dialects have been identified, though comparative work in the language is limited. Of 10,226 Kari’nja speakers, an estimated 7,251 in Venezuela speak the Tabajari dialect, 1,300 in French Guiana and Brazil speak Tyrewuju, 475 in Guyana speak the Aretyry dialect, and an estimated 1,200 Kari’nja speakers in Suriname speak either Tyrewuju or Aretyry (Gordon 2005).⁴ Of these 1,200, the vast majority speak Tyrewuju, the prestige dialect. Examples for this paper come from ongoing documentation, description, and revitalization work I’ve conducted with Aretyry-speaking residents of Konomerume in the Wajambo River region of Suriname (see map 1).

Map 1: Approximate location of Konomerume
Source: www.geographic.org, used with permission.

In this region, which includes three Kari’nja villages, elder native speakers aged 65 and above still use Kari’nja daily as their primary language of communication among themselves. “Middle aged” speakers range in age from 40 to 65 years old. They are native speakers who no longer use the language daily. Younger adults aged 20 to 40 understand the language, but are not fluent speakers. Currently, children are not acquiring the language natively, but there is an effort to revitalize the language through formal lessons and expanded contexts of use. Most ceremonial contexts, including first blood celebrations, mourning rituals, and other major life events are conducted partially in Kari’nja. The Catholic Church, in which lay community members conduct services, has adopted a Kari’nja component. The communities in this region have shifted to Sranan Tongo, the national lingua franca, and Dutch is learned as a second language at school. Few of the oldest native speakers were schooled in any language, though some are partially literate in Dutch. A majority of the “middle aged” native speakers as well as all young adults are literate in both Dutch and Sranan Tongo. 

My own relationship with the community dates to my three-year stay in Konomerume as a Peace Corps Volunteer beginning in 1995. During these three years, I learned Sranan Tongo fluently, and still use it as my primary language of communication with community members, although my proficiency in Kari’nja is improving. During our time in Konomerume, my spouse and I developed many lasting friendships, not least of which is that with Chief Ferdinand Mandé. Chief Mandé is a sixty-year-old native Kari’nja speaker who stopped using the language regularly at age sixteen, when he left the village. He returned to Konomerume in the late 1980s when he was elected village chief. He decided then that one of his duties as chief would be to document Kari’nja, which, in his adulthood, had been all but replaced by Sranan Tongo and Dutch. He began writing down as much of the language as he could remember, and consulted with elders when he couldn’t recall important terms. He kept his recollections in notebooks in his home and spent so much time at his desk that he became known as “The Writing Chief.”

During my Peace Corps service, I was impressed with Chief Mandé’s work on Kari’nja and spent many hours listening to Kari’nja stories he translated for me, lamenting with him over how different the stories were in Sranan Tongo. At the time, having earned a BA in linguistics, I could offer him some advice on documentation methods, but had neither the tools nor the training to help him further.

We maintained a long-distance friendship in the years since my return to the U.S., and when I decided to pursue an advanced degree in linguistics, I asked him whether he would like to work with me. He was delighted that I was interested in supporting his ongoing documentation, and was excited at the prospect of working together. I, of course, shared his excitement, and the projects described in this paper are the product of our resulting collaboration.

2.2 PREVIOUS ACADEMIC DESCRIPTION AND RESEARCH. Existing publications on Kari’nja focus primarily on the more widely spoken dialects, and most are descriptive, not documentary or pedagogical in focus. Mosonyi (1978, 1982) has published some descriptive work on Tabajari. Renault-Lescure (1981, 1983) has described aspects of Tyrewuju (as spoken in French Guiana). The same authors have also created some applied materials for these two dialects, written in Spanish and French, respectively. Gildea (1994, 1998) analyzed aspects of the syntax of Aretyry Kari’nja. Hoff (1968, 1978, 1986, 1995, 2002) has written several academic articles and one book describing aspects of Kari’nja. Hoff’s (1968) grammar provides an academic description of Aretyry phonology and morphology, in addition to a collection of texts. These sixteen texts represent the only widely available documentation of the Aretyry dialect. They were written in an orthography that is accessible to academic, English-literate linguists, but that is largely incomprehensible to Kari’nja speakers.

No published material exists that is accessible to speakers of the Aretyry dialect. There are no widely available applied materials for their own dialect of Kari’nja, and the descriptive work that exists is intended for an audience of academic linguists, and is thus inaccessible to speakers. No locally available linguistic work on Kari’nja has been published in a language that is spoken in Suriname. All but the eldest Aretyry Kari’nja speakers are literate in Dutch and Sranan Tongo, but work from Venezuela is in Spanish, that from French Guiana is in French, and that from Suriname is in English. There is a need in the speech community for documentation that is physically and intellectually accessible to speakers, as well as descriptive and pedagogical materials that will support them in their revitalization efforts. 

3. COLLABORATION. When we started working together, Chief Mandé and I realized that what we share is an interest in and dedication to Kari’nja and its speakers. We also discovered early on that each of us has tools that could help the other. By working together, we accomplish much more than either of us could alone. He has, among other assets, a knowledge of the language and an ability to talk about the language, influence in the community, an existing body of data that he wants to preserve and share, and a strong motivation to document and revitalize his native language. I have training in documentary and descriptive linguistics, tools for preserving and presenting data, and formal training and experience in language teaching.

As we began to develop projects, we strove to include other community members in order to distribute labor for our more ambitious goals, and ensure community support of our work. Any activity we undertook was to be developed and implemented cooperatively, be of mutual benefit, and involve additional members of the community. We both feel that each of the projects described here fulfills these goals.

3.1 LANGUAGE HOUR. As we began to develop documentation projects, Chief Mandé and I found that many of the “middle aged” speakers in Konomerume were reluctant to be recorded because they felt their language skills were no longer “good enough” to be recorded for posterity. Chief Mandé and I have talked with several of these elders who lament that they are out of practice and have no one to talk with regularly. Their children understand but do not speak Kari’nja and their grandchildren neither understand nor recognize the importance of preserving the language. These speakers use Kari’nja occasionally with their aging parents, but find they do not have enough contexts of use to stay fluent. During our conversations, I described methods of maintaining fluency that I either had experience with or had read about (cf. The Master/Apprentice Method, Hinton 2002; Focus Group, Furbee and Stanley 2002; Hawaiian Language Nests, Beamer-Trapp 2003).

As a result of conversations with Chief Mandé and me, one group of adult sisters in Konomerume decided that, every day from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., their neighborhood would be “Kari’nja Only.” The sisters often work together on a variety of household duties. Their language hour provides them with daily practice in the language and ensures that any visitors to their neighborhood are immersed in the language. This has served several purposes in the village. The sisters themselves are pleased to have a built-in practice time every day. In addition, they are raising Kari’nja language consciousness among village youth, reminding them of the language’s importance. Additionally, they are providing opportunities for practice among novice speakers. Finally, they invited me to record one of their mornings when three of the sisters were working together processing cassava—providing data rich in ethnographic content. Chief Mandé intends to record future language hour sessions at the behest of the sisters, texts of which will be used in future analyses and descriptions of the language.

My own role in this particular project has been minimal. In all, I’ve done little more than suggest ideas, provide support and offer encouragement. The sisters have done all the real work here, and needed only a small push in the way of ideas from me. Within two weeks of beginning their language hour, one of the sisters felt enough increased confidence in the language to be able to participate in another project that Chief Mandé and I were working on. She is one of ten speakers who narrated The Cassava Film, described in the next section.

3.2 THE CASSAVA FILM. When I arrived in the village with a camcorder and laptop computer that were to stay in the village,⁵ Chief Mandé and other village leaders immediately began discussions of what to document and how to proceed. We all agreed that any documentation we undertook should not record tokens of elicited language, but rather cultural practices and the language that accompanies them. Together we decided that cassava-bread production would be a great place to start our documentation. A labor-intensive and time-consuming process, cassava-bread production is an important cultural practice rich in specialized language. Village leaders were concerned that our documentation not exclude non-Kari’nja speakers. So, we decided to film different members of the community performing different aspects of the process and each actor would describe what s/he was doing in whatever language was most comfortable. During the editing process, clips would be compiled into one film. We were as concerned with involving multiple community members and documenting cassava-bread making as we were with recording Kari’nja procedural discourse. Thus, the film has portions in Kari’nja, Sranan Tongo, and Dutch. 

As the equipment would be staying in the village, we decided that it was important to identify and train a technology team that would be responsible for maintaining the equipment and filming after my return to the U.S. Technology team members had to be chosen by village leaders, as we couldn’t be sure that volunteers would meet leaders’ requirements for capability, responsibility, and long-term commitment. In addition, familial relationships in the village are tricky to navigate, and it is easy to be accused of nepotism. We settled on a young married couple whom I would train and Chief Mandé would supervise.

Production, filming, and editing of The Cassava Film served as “on-the-job training” for the technology team. We filmed clips of different aspects of the process on different days, and each day represented a training module for the team. We began by getting them familiar with the equipment and practicing without the pressure of actually having to film anything. I filmed and described the process on the first filming day, and on each subsequent day turned additional steps over to the technology team. By the end of filming, they had taken over and I no longer had to be present for filming. We followed a similar protocol for digitization, editing, and burning of DVDs.

Concurrently with Cassava Film production, Chief Mandé, the technology team, and I were recording interviews with elders about various topics of interest, including village history, local geography, and family relationships. We found that some elders were better than others at just talking in Kari’nja. For the more timid elders, we found that elicitation tools such as the Frog Stories (Slobin 2004) provided them with a less threatening context for speaking. We decided to continue this technique using tools such as The Pear Film (Chafe 1980) or The Fish Film (Tomlin 1995, 1997). However, we eventually had an “Aha!” moment when we realized that The Cassava Film would be an excellent elicitation tool for our purposes. It was locally produced, featured actual community members, and was rich in locally appropriate cultural content. Also, we were less interested in the typological questions the Pear and Fish film protocols are designed to address, and more interested in eliciting culturally relevant data.

Ten native speakers, chosen by Chief Mandé, were asked to describe the action of the film as though they were witnessing it firsthand. We played the film with the sound turned off, and recorded elders’ descriptions as they watched the film. Chief Mandé and I transcribed, translated, and partially analyzed the resulting recordings in the field.

Elders enjoyed narrating a film of such local relevance featuring local “actors.” Elders felt they were providing data that were of immediate importance in their own community. This led to a sense of local ownership of the documentation process. In addition, training a local technology team and providing them with tools that remain in the village empowers community members to decide what to document and what to make accessible to outsiders. In addition, time invested in training a local technology team allows for documentation to continue in my absence. 

In the six months after The Cassava Film was produced, the technology team made two additional films in my absence recording two important events:  a traditional birthday celebration for a respected elder and community participation in the National Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They produced and distributed DVDs of these to several community members, and are working to create lesson materials to support the former. In addition, they established a relationship with the head of a repair company in the capital city who, motivated by a desire to contribute to Kari’nja documentation and preservation, has provided service for the camcorder and laptop free of charge. In August 2007, we filmed, edited, and recorded descriptions for two additional elicitation films: The Fishing Film, and The Wori-wjori Film. The technology team has also recorded raw footage for what will become The Matapi Film. They will edit and record narrations for this film, and will record additional narrations for the Fishing and Wori-wjori films prior to my next trip to the field. In recording narrations for these new films, we are seeking expanded language content by recording pairs of elders conversing about a film, and including multiple actors performing filmed actions.

That the equipment continues to be used and is well maintained is a testament to the success of the “team” approach. It was important to Chief Mandé that the equipment be given to the Kari’nja language project and not to the village as a whole. In this way, access to and responsibility for the equipment lies with a small number of people, and they ensure that it is well cared for.

The films themselves record important cultural practices. The elicited narrations provide rich linguistic and ethnographic content, and the texts represent an important component of the available corpus in the language. Their analysis has led to questions that are of interest both to me, academically, and to Chief Mandé in support of his teaching. They will likely raise additional questions as they are further analyzed. Finally, they form the basis for the next topic to be addressed—collaborative analysis.

3.3 COLLABORATIVE ANALYSIS INCLUDING CHOICE OF TOPIC AND METHOD OF ANALYSIS. Early in our collaboration, Chief Mandé and I discovered an aspect of Kari’nja grammar described by Hoff (1986) that we were both having trouble understanding metalinguistically. In addition, Chief Mandé found that teaching this construction was difficult, as learners were unable to predict when to use it in favor of another construction that is usually translated identically. We asked for help from elder speakers, who were unable to describe the difference between the two constructions, though they could easily identify contexts of use. As Chief Mandé was having trouble teaching the construction, and he disagreed with the existing academic analysis, he and I decided together that this would be a topic of both local and greater academic interest. An alternative analysis would facilitate his teaching, describe the construction in a way that reflected his own knowledge about its use, and provide me with an opportunity to fulfill my obligation, as a graduate student, to produce an academic paper in order to advance to PhD candidacy. Through collaborative analysis, we have developed an alternative to Hoff’s (1986) analysis that we both feel better reflects the particular pieces of the grammar as they appear in the texts, as well as Chief Mandé’s and elders’ insights regarding how and when they employ them. The particular forms in question comprise the [ky- V -ng] construction in Kari’nja.

The [ky- V -ng] construction in Kari’nja occurs only with non-speech-act participants (non-SAPs). The finite verb stem, inflected for person by prefix, and tense, aspect, modality, and number (TAMN) by suffix, is further inflected with an /-ng/ suffix and a /ky-/ prefix. Hoff (1986) described these morphemes as members of the evidentiality system: /-ng/ indicating introspective (noneyewitness) evidentiality, and /ky-/ indicating “strong grade,” which tells the hearer that, although the speaker was not an eyewitness, the information is nonetheless reliable. The following example illustrates the construction (/ky-/ and /-ng/ will be glossed in a subsequent example):

(1)	Elic6
	ky-	ni-	kupi	-ja	-ng
	?	3A3O	bathe/wash	Prs.Tns	?
	‘She bathes him’7

In discussing this construction, Chief Mandé realized that he is actually more likely to employ this construction for events of which he is, in fact, an eyewitness. Text data support this assertion, as speakers do employ this construction in describing events that they have witnessed. Thus, the description of /-ng/ as a marker of noneyewitness evidentiality fails to reflect speaker insights regarding this morpheme, and it fails to reflect attested usage in a novel genre, one which was not a part of Hoff’s corpus. Instead, Chief Mandé and I posit that /-ng/ indicates a modal value of “uncertainty.” We further posit that the /ky-/ in this construction indicates distal deixis, either locative or temporal. According to Chief Mandé, if, for example, he is describing a situation wherein a mother is bathing her child, and the mother and child are visible in the nearby bathhouse, within a few feet of the SAPs, he would use the [V] construction without /ky-/ or /-ng/. However, when the mother and child are down by the river, but still visible through the trees, he would employ the [ky- V -ng] construction. Though we have yet to fully test our hypotheses for all TAM distinctions, Chief Mandé and I are confident that our analysis will be supported by additional data. Thus, this construction may now be parsed and glossed as follows (Yamada 2008):

(2)	Elic
	kynenejang
	ky-	n-	ene	-ja	-ng
	3.Dist	3A3O	watch	Prs.Tns	Uncty
	‘She watches him (action happening at a distance from speech event).’

Collaborating on the choice of topic to be described has ensured that the academic description of the [ky- V -ng] construction in Kari’nja is of interest to both of the communities in which I work. The cooperative analysis better corresponds to analyses of cognate morphemes in the family (cf. Meira 1999:311ff; Derbyshire 1985:186; Gildea 1998:98).⁸  In addition, it better reflects Chief Mandé’s and other speakers’ insights. The alternative analysis of this construction has proven easier to teach, as the analysis is more concrete, making it easier for learners to predict when it is appropriate to employ this construction. Finally, this cooperative analysis encourages Chief Mandé to be a part of the academic endeavor and provides legitimacy to his insights. The resulting description will fulfill one of my academic requirements and will form the basis of a teaching unit addressing the construction in question.

This cooperative approach to analysis would not be possible had Chief Mandé and I not come to some middle ground with regard to how to talk about language. This middle ground was achieved in response to our mutual needs for access: access to speaker insights for me, and access to previous academic descriptions for Chief Mandé. Training in linguistics for Chief Mandé and other SCLs helped to meet these needs.

3.4 LINGUISTICS TRAINING FOR SCLS. Throughout the process of text translation and transcription, Chief Mandé and I discovered that, although we share a language (Sranan Tongo), we lacked a common way of talking about language. We decided to set aside an hour per day for training in linguistics. I provided Chief Mandé with the training that introduced him to the particular way in which the academic community analyses and describes language. Through this informal training, he was then able to introduce me to the manner in which the mostly bi- or tri-lingual speech community views language. This particular community of approximately 350 is rich with languages spoken natively by community members. Most “middle-aged” Kari’nja speakers are trilingual in Kari’nja, Sranan Tongo, and Dutch. In addition, village residents include some native English speakers who have emigrated from Guyana, as well as native Arawak speakers from other parts of Suriname.

I used Hoff’s (1968) grammar of Kari’nja as the basis for these discussions, and in so doing was able to provide Chief Mandé with intellectual and physical access to Hoff’s analyses. Concurrently with these sessions, Chief Mandé and I were engaged in a curriculum development workshop with the elementary school teachers. The teachers noticed two things during these workshops:  I often referred to Hoff 1968, and Chief Mandé and I were having conversations about grammar that excluded them. As a result, they asked that they be provided with linguistics training as well so that they could have access to both Hoff’s (1968) descriptions and the grammar conversations between Chief Mandé and me. As novice Kari’nja speakers who have been formally schooled in Dutch, they felt that access to linguistic descriptions of Kari’nja would aid them in their teaching of the language. In response to their request, Chief Mandé and I designed and led a grammar workshop for the teachers with the goal of providing training in linguistics through the medium of academic descriptions of Kari’nja. This lively workshop led to an increased understanding of Kari’nja for me, as I was forced to look at Hoff’s analyses in a new way. The workshop also provided the teachers with access to outsider analyses of Kari’nja and a new way to talk about language.

The goal of this workshop was to make academia’s unusual way of thinking and talking about language accessible to community members, not to introduce them to a whole new jargon. So, rather than attempt Sranan Tongo, Dutch, or Kari’nja coinages for terms such as palatalization, I chose instead to teach by illustration and allow terms for linguistic processes to emerge from the teachers’ input and Chief Mandé’s insights. For example, Kari’nja has a regular process of palatalization after the /i/ phoneme. I illustrated this with several examples such as the following where [k --> č/ i ___]:

(3)	a.	kupi	>	kupi
	b.	a- kupi	>	akupi
	c.	ni- kupi	>	ničupi

The teachers noticed unusual pronunciations of sounds that follow /i/. They deduced that the /i/ was causing these changes and decided to call it the “Ugly i.”⁹ This led to similar discussions and naming of other phonological processes. By illustrating patterns with real examples, allowing teachers to arrive at conclusions inductively, and coining terms that are intuitively accessible to the teachers, Chief Mandé and I were able to provide them with access to metalinguistic discussions of Kari’nja. Since we have developed a common way of discussing language cooperatively, Chief Mandé and the teachers will be able to access my academic descriptions of Kari’nja, provided I translate them into a language that is spoken in Suriname.

While Konomerume SCLs are now able to engage in metalinguistic discussions of Kari’nja in a manner consistent with the way in which the academic community does, it is nonetheless the case that academic descriptions continue to be written in languages that are not widely spoken or read in Suriname. I cannot (nor do I want to) change the fact that, in order to appeal to the widest audience, academic descriptions must be written in widely spoken international languages. However, I can increase speech community access to my own analyses by presenting them to the community in a manner and language that is accessible to community members.

As a way of supporting this access and presenting and testing analyses, I have made a commitment to present all academic analyses in two languages—English for the academic community and Sranan Tongo for the speech community. In this way, I hope to encourage continued speech community involvement in description and analysis. Although time-consuming, this additional step is mutually beneficial and engages SCLs in the academic endeavor. In addition, it provides me with more input from the speech community in support of analyses that reflect speaker insights.

3.5 WORKING PEDAGOGICAL GRAMMAR AND COLLABORATIVE WORKING DICTIONARY. As a result of Chief Mandé’s work—both before and during our collaboration—there is a renewed interest among community members in preserving the language. Many young adults, including the newly elected village council, have begun to realize that a valuable resource is being lost in the village. In response to this loss, a few young adults have developed Master/Apprentice (Hinton 2002) type relationships with elders. In addition, Chief Mandé has been asked to teach the language in a formal adult school course, which he team teaches with two other elder speakers and one of the elementary school teachers. Village elementary school teachers have also begun formal Kari’nja lessons in the K-6 school.

Unfortunately, appropriate teaching materials are simply unavailable. The small, out of print, purportedly pedagogical grammar that exists (Maleko 1999) is really more of a grammar sketch and does little to support teachers (most of whom are novice speakers) in their teaching. Chief Mandé and I have examined ways of developing pedagogical materials that are both immediately useful to him and other teachers, and broadly useful academically.

We have chosen to develop several small, multilingual, thematic dictionaries rather than one single magnum opus. The thematic approach (Mosel 2004) has the advantage of providing more immediate results, being less time-consuming to produce, and capitalizing on input from members of the community as different people focus on themes that interest them. In addition, modern technology makes it possible to cheaply produce versions of a work in progress that are immediately useful and can be used to gain greater speaker input into a finished product.¹⁰ Thematic dictionaries also support development of curriculum modules for formal teaching. Finally, working cooperatively allows for divisions of labor that ensure a more productive use of time.

Chief Mandé and I began by developing a trilingual Kari’nja/Dutch/English dictionary with Sranan Tongo wordlist based on The Cassava Film texts. As I am not fluent in Dutch, Chief Mandé is responsible for that portion of the dictionary. Issues that are addressed in an ongoing way include practical orthography, citation forms, representation of examples, and delivery media.¹¹ Chief Mandé and I conducted our first dictionary development workshop in August 2007, during which we sought to edit and fine-tune our current work. We were able to address several remaining problems, including representation of vowel length, expansion of the Sranan Tongo word list to give it a status on a par with the other three languages represented, and creation of illustrations for cultural artifacts.

Additional thematic dictionaries will be based on our more recent films as well as on interviews conducted by one member of the technology team. In addition to teaching in the elementary school and her work with the technology team, she also works for an indigenous land rights organization, the Association of Indigenous Village Leaders in Suriname (VIDS), and has been interviewing elders about local geography and land use. Her notes and those of her VIDS colleagues will form the basis of a dictionary that will support a place-based pedagogical unit. The collaborative approach and choice to create multiple thematic dictionaries encourages input from various members of the community, empowering them to take an active role in documentation and reducing reliance on outside help.

Recently, Chief Mandé and I led a curriculum development workshop for the elementary school teachers. This workshop evolved into the grammar workshop described earlier. Through these two workshops, we designed a yearlong, place-based curriculum that includes lesson topics, materials, and a grammar sketch. The curriculum is now being piloted, and we plan to devote time during a future fieldtrip to its expansion and refinement. The grammar sketch, which supports the lesson topics, represents the first step toward a pedagogical grammar. Chief Mandé and I intend to expand this rudimentary work into a more comprehensive, integrated description of the language in use. In addition, time spent on this pedagogical grammar has provided me with a more grounded working knowledge of the language.  This knowledge will form the basis for an academic description of underdescribed aspects of the language, including syntax, semantics, and discourse.

3.6 DIGITIZATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF PREVIOUS RECORDINGS. Of projects described here, the one that is most personally meaningful to both Chief Mandé and to me is the repatriation of old recordings. As we pored through Hoff 1968, we realized that several of the texts were stories Chief Mandé’s grandfather had told over 50 years ago, as his grandfather had been one of Dr. Hoff’s consultants. I made contact with Dr. Hoff and had the good fortune of meeting him in person. I suggested that, if he were to digitize his old recordings, I would happily provide copies to descendants of his consultants. Eventually, an invaluable treasure appeared in my mailbox:  over 18 hours of Dr. Hoff’s recordings and permission to distribute copies to descendants of his consultants. When I told Chief Mandé that he would once again be able to hear his grandfather’s voice after so many decades, his eyes welled with tears. His grandfather, too, had been chief of his village, and Chief Mandé inherited both his leadership ability and a commitment to his language and his community. 

My spouse copied the recordings onto CDs, creating twelve sets of twelve CDs each. I distributed these during a recent field trip to descendents of Dr. Hoff’s consultants. On more than one occasion thereafter, I was stopped by a tearful elder who wished to express his or her gratitude. One elder, in particular, informed me that she was so inspired by listening to her ancestors’ songs that she would be dancing and singing at her upcoming eightieth birthday celebration—no matter how much her voice quivered or her knees ached.

The greater impact of this particular project is an emotional one, a fact that should not be underestimated. That Dr. Hoff’s generosity allowed me to return these recordings to their rightful heirs addresses greater needs than those served by academic descriptions. Reclaiming these important pieces of their heritage has had an undeniable impact on members of the speech community, which, in turn, has affected me personally. This project addresses the “human connection” piece of linguistic fieldwork that is so essential to successful working relationships and yet so rarely acknowledged publicly. Ultimately, linguistics is a social science, and linguistic fieldwork its most “social” undertaking. Speech community members, so often relegated to “data generator” status, can, through collaboration with academic linguists, reclaim important pieces of their heritage. Projects such as this one provide a direct link between academic and speech communities and are part of what makes this endeavor worthwhile.

The previous lack of availability of Dr. Hoff’s recordings highlighted for community members the importance of archiving. As we expand the available Aretyry Kari’nja corpus, there is a need for archiving that is safe, reliable, accessible to speech community members, and over which speech community members can impose access restrictions. Our grant-funded work is archived with both granting agency and university archives, and access is restricted. When Dr. Hoff provided me with copies of his recordings, he also archived them in the Netherlands.

Chief Mandé and other village leaders are currently working to create their own local archive for locally produced documentation materials. They have sought assistance from VIDS, and intend to store copies of all materials with that organization. In addition, they want to open a regional information center in the village to serve as a secondary archive and to provide a place where community members can access documentary materials. They are currently seeking funding for such a center. Chief Mandé and I, in cooperation with other community leaders, are drafting a grant proposal.

In addition to the technical aspects of establishing and maintaining a local archive, issues that have come up during this process include access restrictions and distribution protocols. Community leaders are adamant that local control be maintained over who may access language and cultural materials and for what purpose. There is a (not unjustified) sense that researchers have distributed and profited from materials with neither the knowledge nor consent of community members. One elder, on a recent vacation trip to the Netherlands, discovered, displayed in a Dutch museum, a photograph of herself as a child that she did not know existed. In addition to confirming local suspicions that outsiders are not to be trusted, her discovery has encouraged village leaders to draft and ratify local research protocols.

As my own direct involvement in this process may be seen as a conflict of interest, I have asked village leaders to exclude me from the actual drafting of protocols. However, I have provided assistance in the form of translating existing protocols from other communities as well as suggesting topics (such as ethical behavior and intellectual or intangible property) that might be addressed in a local protocol. They have sought additional advice from VIDS, and expect to draft and ratify a local protocol within the next year.

4. CONCLUSIONS.

4.1 METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK. The projects described in this paper represent the practical application of the empowerment model of fieldwork described by Cameron et al. (1992, 1997) as research done on, for, and with research communities. One may ask why a formal methodological framework such as this is even necessary. No one sets out to exploit, and we all like to believe we are ethical—whether or not we collaborate with speech community members. However, linguistic fieldwork, like that conducted in other social sciences, is affected by the fact that many of the people we work with are tired of being subject to academic research that is of little benefit to them. According to Chief Mandé, “I am not an ape. You can’t study me like one anymore” (Ferdinand Mandé, September, 2006, personal communication). Deloria concurs, “Compilation of useless knowledge ‘for knowledge’s sake’ should be utterly rejected by the Indian people. We should not be the objects of observation for those who do nothing to help us” (1988:94).

There is a movement among many speakers of endangered and minoritized languages to demand an equal voice in research that affects them. The empowerment model, with its emphasis on interactive methods, acknowledgement of (and attention paid to) speech community members’ own agendas, and the sharing of knowledge, seeks to bridge the gap between researcher and researched. It is important to note that an empowerment framework does not advocate the researcher subjugating his or her own agenda in favor of that of the speech community but rather, working cooperatively to identify projects of mutual benefit (Cameron et al. 1997:154–159).

In support of this methodological framework, Grinevald (1998) notes that the linguistic fieldworker working to document and describe endangered languages is usually the only linguist available to a particular community. As such, s/he must consider it his or her responsibility to share his or her knowledge and expertise with the community. In addition, Grinevald argues that the descriptive linguist must be prepared to address issues of import to the speech community including issues relevant to language revitalization. “It is not enough for ‘straight’ linguists to think that such projects are the domain of educators and applied linguists; on one hand, manpower is much too scarce, and the reality is that the linguist is a one-person orchestra in the field. On the other hand, the linguists could be the ones most able to comprehend the linguistic situation of endangered languages” (Grinevald 1998:158).

Building on Grinevald’s metaphor, this paper suggests that the “one-person orchestra” can be a symphony when the academic linguist and speech community members cooperate toward a single, mutually defined and mutually beneficial set of goals and objectives. The aim of such a framework is to develop working relationships that distribute the workload, allow all members of the fieldwork endeavor to play to their strengths, encourage ongoing negotiation of goals and objectives, and address the needs of both the academic and the speech communities.

Institutional support for this methodology can be found in Canada’s Community-University Research Alliances (CURAs). According to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC),

“A CURA: 

• is based on an equal partnership between organizations from the communiy and one or more postsecondary institution; and 
• provides co-ordination and core support for planning and carrying out diversified research activities that reflect the CURA program objectives, are centered on themes/areas of mutual importance to the partners, and are closely related to their existing strengths” (SSHRC 2007).

In addition, “the project partners jointly define a CURA’s research activities as well as the participatory arrangements under which individual researchers and research teams will carry out those activities. The partners should continue to develop and refine the research activities and, in addition to strengthening the original alliance, should, where necessary, also recruit new partners during the period of the grant (SSHRC 2007).” Although CURA funding is not widely available, it is nonetheless possible to model individual projects on CURA-like principles even in the absence of such broad institutional support. Research that seeks to meet the needs of both the academic community and the speech community through collaboration in project planning, design, and implementation is consistent with CURA objectives.

Table 1. Needs of speech and academic communities and projects that address both

	Speech Community	Academic Community	Project
1	Conversation practice for elder speakers	High-quality recordings of natural discourse	Language hour
2	Documentation of cultural practices	Varied, naturalistic data with rich ethnographic content	The Cassava Film
3	Understanding of forms to be formally taught	Questions of academic and typological interest	Collaborative analysis including choice of topic and method of analysis
4	Access to previous and ongoing linguistic analyses	Access to speaker insights	Linguistics training for SCLs
5	Pedagogical materials	Understanding of language in use for novice linguist	Working pedagogical grammar Collaborative working dictionary
6	Reclamation of “lost” language that may have been previously recorded	Data for analyses of language change	Digitization and distribution of previous recordings

4.2 ACADEMIC COMMUNITY NEEDS; SPEECH COMMUNITY NEEDS. Each of the projects described in this paper was conceived of in response to both speech community and academic community needs. The primary objective in creating projects was to cooperatively identify and undertake projects of mutual benefit. An additional objective was to involve speech community members in all aspects of project identification, development, and implementation so that the primary responsibility for successful project outcomes was not solely with me. The topics addressed here represent a first step toward identifying and piloting projects that meet both academic and speech community needs. The list is by no means exhaustive, and projects and products are demonstrative rather than definitive. The following chart outlines speech community needs, corresponding academic community needs, and projects described in this paper in service of both. Subsequent sections describe each set of needs in more detail

4.2.1 LANGUAGE HOUR. In communities where native speakers are still alive but the language has fallen out of use, elder speakers may find they are simply out of practice speaking the language. They are often hesitant to be recorded as they feel their language skills are no longer “good enough” to be recorded as representing the language for posterity. In situations such as these, the AL can nurture a “language club” or “focus group” (Furbee and Stanley 2002). Such a club provides practice for speakers whose fluency has been affected by a lack of daily use of the language and expands the contexts of use of the language in communities interested in revitalization. A factor contributing to language shift is a decline in functional domains of language use. A language club provides a new context for language use and provides speakers of all levels a safe venue in which to practice without fear of correction. In addition, as elders regain fluency, the language club can provide a venue for recording natural discourse, addressing the academic community need for varied, natural discourse. The “Kari’nja Only” language hour described in this paper seeks to meet these needs.

4.2.2 THE CASSAVA FILM. Members of endangered language communities engaged in documentation have a need to record not only tokens of language as elicited by academic linguists, but also cultural practices that may too be endangered. According to Mithun, “what we choose to document now may be all the information available to future descendants of speakers curious about their linguistic heritage” (2001:53). As such, documentary materials should be rich in both linguistic and cultural content. For the academic linguist, the best descriptive output depends on an available corpus that includes varied, naturalistic data with rich ethnographic content. In addition, recordings of connected speech have the advantage of illustrating “patterns that we might not know enough to elicit, and that might not even be sufficiently accessible to the consciousness of speakers to be volunteered or retrievable under direct questioning” (Mithun 2001:45). The Cassava Film and others were produced in answer to the needs for varied discourse rich in ethnographic content and documentation of cultural practices.

4.2.3 COLLABORATIVE ANALYSIS. The academic linguist has a responsibility to the academic community s/he represents to choose research questions that have broad academic relevance and typological interest. Speech community members engaged in formal teaching have a desire to be able to discuss, metalinguistically, complex aspects of their grammar in order to facilitate their teaching. An AL who works in collaboration with SCLs can work collaboratively to identify topics of mutual interest for description. In addition, analyses can be conducted cooperatively such that the AL does not posit hypotheses that fail to match speaker knowledge of the language. In linguist-focused models, academic linguists often conduct analyses in the absence of speech community member input. Speakers are asked questions during elicitation sessions aimed at confirming or disproving linguist hypotheses, but the bulk of actual analysis is done by the linguist. In more traditional fieldwork models that assume a “naive informant,” the native speaker has little input into analyses posited by the academic linguist. This has occasionally led to analyses that introduce levels of abstraction inconsistent with speaker insights. In addition, the resulting academic descriptions are inaccessible to speakers and fail to meet the needs of speakers engaged in formal revitalization programs. Questions of typological or comparative interest to the AL may not be relevant to the SCL. In addition, questions of practical relevance to the SCL may hold little academic interest.  Analysis, and especially choice of topic, in collaboration can serve to ground descriptions in actual discourse use and lead to analyses that better reflect speaker insights. In addition, cooperative choice of topic addressed can ensure that descriptions are relevant to both SCLs and ALs.

This is not to say that all analyses must necessarily be collaborative. As with any partnership, that between ALs and SCLs assumes that there will be projects that each member of the partnership pursues independently based on individual interests and specialization. In fact, situated within the context of a greater, long-term, collaborative effort, independent projects are desirable. However, linguist-focused models of fieldwork leave no possibility of (and, in the case of “naive informants,” actively discourage) SCL input into choice of topic or analysis thereof. This paper advocates an approach that allows for SCL input and participation where practical and encourages bridging the gap between ALs and SCLs through open dialogue, training, and partnership. 

4.2.4 LINGUISTICS TRAINING FOR SCLS. The AL interested in analyses that reflect native speaker insights needs access to those insights. The SCL interested in reclaiming and revitalizing previously described but currently underused aspects of his or her language needs access—both intellectual and physical—to previous and future academic descriptions. Linguistics training for the SCL is essential for development of a common way of talking about language. For most nonlinguists, discovering the way in which the academic community views and describes language metalinguistically is a novel undertaking. That is not to say that the SCL who lacks the privilege of access to higher-level formal schooling is unable to view his or her language in this way, nor does it mean that s/he has not thought about his or her language and how it works. Rather it is simply the case that the SCL and the AL must develop a way of talking about language that makes sense to both.

This can be accomplished through formal, centralized training programs that bring members of various communities together, or through less formal, site-based workshops organized by the AL. The workshops described in sections 3.4 and 3.5 represent examples of the latter. Florey (2004) describes examples of the former. Held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, these workshops in languages of the Malukan Islands sought to fulfill four aims:

• “demystify linguistics and linguistic fieldwork,
• empower individuals and/or communities to undertake language documentation and revitalisation or maintenance at a grassroots level,
• counter the perceived need for the involvement of professionals in all language activities, (and)
• confront the issue of language variation and change in order to address puristic attitudes and intervene in the language shift cycle” (2004:18–19).

Florey stresses that one of the positive outcomes of these workshops was the partnerships SCLs forged with each other as well as with ALs. “This outcome highlights the two-way benefit of training programs such as these. Participants left with the tools to work independently or in teams with or without professional support. The linguists had built stronger relationships which will support our documentation and revitalisation activities” (2004:24).

4.2.5 PEDAGOGICAL MATERIALS. Cooperative development of pedagogical materials for formal teaching of the target language can serve several needs for academic and speech communities. No longer the purview of applied linguists or educators only, development of pedagogical materials such as dictionaries, curricula, and learners’ grammars can provide an increased understanding of language use for the linguist. In addition, questions addressed during materials development can serve as springboards to questions to be addressed by academic analysis and description.

Products can support both academic and speech community needs. A thoughtful multilingual dictionary is a valuable resource for both speech community members interested in revitalization and formal teaching, and academics interested in comparative and typological analysis. A pedagogical grammar can provide the basis for a more detailed academic grammar. The present paper focuses on two ongoing working products:  a working pedagogical grammar that includes a yearlong curriculum plan and lesson topics, and a set of multilingual thematic dictionaries.

One may spend a lifetime devoted to producing a dictionary yet may never arrive at a complete, comprehensive publication. However, modern technology makes it possible to produce versions of a work in progress that are immediately useful. Distributing working versions of a dictionary lessens the worry that whatever one sends to the publisher will be the final historical record-for-all-time. In communities desperate for materials in their own languages, any dictionary is better than no dictionary. Working versions allow for community input in a way that traditional published dictionaries do not.

Smaller thematic dictionaries are less time-consuming to produce, provide more immediate results, and capitalize on input from members of the speech community as different people focus on themes that interest them (Mosel 2004). Thematic dictionaries also support development of curriculum modules for formal language teaching. Finally, working cooperatively allows for divisions of labor that ensure a more productive use of time.

4.2.6 REPATRIATION OF PREVIOUS RECORDINGS. Communities whose languages are highly endangered have a need for access to previous recordings of the language. These records may be all that remain of many aspects of a language that is no longer used as a daily mode of communication in all contexts. In communities where the language is still in use, prior records of the language may illustrate how the language has changed. These data are important to academic linguists interested in historical linguistics, grammaticalization, and diachronic change. For the academic, gaining access to previous linguists’ recordings and texts provides important comparative and historical data. For the speech community, old recordings provide an invaluable link to previous generations. For both, repatriating heritage recordings provides a direct link between the academic and speech communities.

The existence of old recordings that are unavailable to speech community members highlights the need for safe, reliable, accessible archiving. Addressing archival issues at the onset of a project is essential, as is archiving existing language data. Johnson (2004) provides a useful overview of archiving issues including corpus building, access restrictions, and recording metadata. In a collaborative, community-based framework, it is essential that training for SCLs include an archiving component. In addition, speech community members may choose to develop their own research protocols that include restrictions on access to the language corpus.

4.3 OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS. Every field setting is unique, and every fieldworker must tailor his or her strategies to match the situation s/he encounters. For the academic linguistic fieldworker devoted to a collaborative methodology, there are many potential obstacles to establishing and maintaining an ongoing working relationship with a community, three of which are brought to light in this paper. These include a research schedule that precludes time spent building relationships, producing materials in support of speech community objectives, and recruiting potential SCLs. 

The temporal and financial constraints under which most linguistic fieldworkers must operate are an impediment to spending sufficient time in a community to earn trust, establish relationships with potential SCLs, and understand community needs. Overcoming these obstacles calls for creative, thoughtful planning on the part of the academic.

In my own case, spending three years in continuous residence in the community as a Peace Corps Volunteer allowed me to establish trust and build relationships with members of the community, who are now my primary partners in the language documentation endeavor. I realize that, for the current graduate student interested in identifying a research community, Peace Corps service may be impractical. However, it may be possible to commit to shorter periods of time spent in a community doing something other than linguistic fieldwork. One might volunteer for development or service organizations that require shorter time commitments such as United Nations Volunteers (http://www.unv.org), United Planet (http://www.unitedplanet.org), or Global Volunteers (http://www.globalvolunteers.org). Established educational or volunteer programs in the country of interest might also provide service opportunities to the linguist interested in establishing community relationships in advance of conducting fieldwork. The academic who cannot take time to establish connections personally might form a team or volunteer as a research assistant with someone who already has.

Another potential venue for developing relationships with SCLs outside the community is an established organization that works in partnership with indigenous communities on language or other issues of import to the speech community. In the United States, organizations such as the Northwest Indian Language Institute (NILI), the Indigenous Language Institute (ILI), the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI), the Language Documentation Training Center (LDTC) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and the “Breath of Life—Silent no more” California Indian Language Restoration Workshops are actively engaged in language preservation work with indigenous communities. These organizations either organize workshops that bring community members to a central location, provide on-site trainings within particular communities, or a combination of the two. NILI provides both types of service. In addition to on-site consulting on such topics as language planning and policy, curriculum development, and program assessment, NILI sponsors a summer institute providing training in linguistics, language documentation, and teaching materials development for SCLs. A graduate student interested in establishing relationships with potential collaborators might volunteer for an organization such as NILI, whose objectives are in line with those described by Florey (2004).

Other potential volunteer opportunities include offering one’s services as a linguist to a language program directly. Wilkins describes contacting Aboriginal communities and organizations “to see whether they had any community-approved research topics for which they could use an independently funded PhD student in linguistics” (1992:174). Taking this risk paid off, and he was able to establish a long-term relationship with the Yipirinya School in Alice Springs, Central Australia. He describes spending time on community matters not directly related to his research foci. He also describes payoffs in terms of community participation and collaboration.

Describing her work with the Sm’algyax Dictionary Project, Stebbins (2003) highlights the importance of spending time in a community building relationships. 

Over two field trips and the course of a year, members of the Tsimshian community and I got to know each other. For me this was a process of gradually learning how to function in the community as well as establishing personal and working relationships with a variety of people. I have been told that for the Tsimshian people concerned the process involved getting to know me and developing confidence in my ability to work respectfully with members of the community (2003:122).

She later refers to this period as having “felt like the world’s longest job interview” (Stebbins 2003:273). Her time was rewarded with a productive, mutually beneficial partnership. The researcher interested in building relationships and establishing trust might structure her research agenda such that she is in the field for several shorter periods doing, for example, pilot projects prior to embarking on a more intensive research stay in the community.

The essential part of community building is taking the time necessary to get to know members of the community, learn about their interests and needs, and establish trust relationships. This can be done through more elaborate means such as those described above, or through such simple acts as showing up for important events, or helping to buy groceries. For example, Watahomigie and Yamamoto (1987) found that much of their time in the field was spent on building trust rather than recording language. They describe the skepticism from elders faced by outsiders trying to initiate a Hualapai bilingual/bicultural education program. Elders’ skepticism was based on previous linguists’ work that benefited only the researcher. Watahomigie and Yamamoto describe the time required to gain trust in the community and the necessity of traveling to the community on “nonbusiness” matters in order to prove that their motivations were not solely self-serving. Before they were willing to participate in linguistic research, community members had to be convinced that they would not be exploited.

A second potential impediment to successful collaborative relationships is the length of time necessary to produce materials in support of community needs. In the absence of prior linguistic work in a language, the novice linguist may find all of his or her time is spent trying to understand the phonology, while community members need the support of advanced grammar lessons. Video documentation, such as that conducted for The Cassava Film, provides a ready tool that is suitable for addressing multiple needs.

The filming itself, which can begin almost immediately, can serve several purposes. Training a technology team helps to strengthen relationships between the AL and SCLs. SCLs can be trained to transcribe the audio portion of documentary videos, which can form the basis for practical orthography development. Transcribed and translated texts can be used to create a wordlist, which can be later expanded into a dictionary. Throughout the process of filming, transcribing, and translating texts, the AL is establishing an atmosphere of collaboration from the very beginning. S/he and SCLs are building a corpus that will serve multiple future needs.

In addition, the focus on documentation of natural language in varied contexts provides the linguist with immediate exposure to more varied language than would be accessible in more traditional wordlist-style elicitation. If the AL and SCLs choose to produce smaller thematic dictionaries based on documentary films, SCLs will more quickly see useful results upon which more advanced pedagogical materials can be based.

Finally, the linguist who is new to a speech community may have trouble identifying and recruiting speech community members who are suitable partners. Time spent in the community in a capacity other than that of AL can certainly help one to identify potential collaborators. However, it may not be possible to do this. I have found that the team approach helps to recruit collaborators with distinct strengths who can participate in various aspects of a project. In addition, forming teams allows collaboration with community members who might otherwise be unable to participate in a documentation project due to lack of consistent availability or capacity for particular tasks. The team approach also distributes responsibility for the success of a project among the members of the team rather than placing it on the shoulders of any single individual. This reduces the power imbalance between ALs and SCLs and empowers team members to work together and encourage each other to ensure completion of a project. If community members are involved in projects and working independently, there is less pressure on the AL to “do it all.”

For the researcher and speech community interested in working toward a less linguist-centered methodology, this paper provides practical examples of mutually beneficial, community-based projects that seek to bridge the divide between researcher and researched. It does not mean to suggest that all linguistic fieldwork must necessarily be collaborative. The historical or comparative linguist interested in addressing a very limited set of research questions may find collaboration with speech community members impractical. However, I would argue in favor of placing such more specialized academic work within the greater context of community-based collaboration, provided that the speech community wants such a partnership. Such an approach includes tangible benefits, including a richer language corpus and greater distribution of labor, as well as less tangible benefits such as increased trust and support from speech community members.

The emotional impact of a collaborative linguistic fieldwork methodology should not be underestimated. Both academic linguists and speech community members do this work because of a shared dedication to the languages studied and their speakers. Working together to identify and implement projects of mutual benefit ensures that all members of the fieldwork endeavor can see the positive value of their shared work.

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Racquel-María Yamada
ryamada at uoregon dot edu

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