This Thursday, during Fieldwork Lab, Hermann Keupdjio will talk to us about doing a virtual fieldtrip. Contact Carol-Rose Little if you would like to join.
Doing a virtual “fieldtrip”:
Collecting data from understudied languages is a vital enterprise that enriches our knowledge of the nature of human language. Accomplishing this with in person visits is invaluable, however, in addition to the current pandemic situation, there is an urgent need for more data, and a limited number of linguists with the training and resources to conduct field work. In this situation, online experiments provide a powerful supplementary tool for linguists and fieldworkers studying underdocumented languages. Specifically, rather than supplanting fieldwork, online experiments can allow for an expansion of field work with pre-visit pilots and follow-up experiments. More importantly, they are a helpful tool in creating and enhancing global collaborations and capacity building between field linguists, members of understudied language communities, and linguists without field training.