Читать книгу Living Language - Laura M. Ahearn - Страница 43

One of the most widely used research methods in linguistic anthropology is known as “participant observation” and is shared with cultural anthropology as well as other fields that engage in ethnographic research.³ In fact, most linguistic anthropologists consider participant observation to be an essential method for their research. (The reasons why this is so should be evident after reading in Chapter 1 that linguistic anthropologists consider language to be inextricably interwoven with social practices.) Participant observation requires linguistic anthropologists to spend months or years residing in a particular community (or set of communities, in the case of multi-sited ethnographic research), during which time, they become fluent in the local language(s), if they are not already, and become extremely familiar with local social norms, cultural meanings, and linguistic practices. Scholars who conduct participant observation take copious notes, called fieldnotes, while participating in an event or taking part in an interaction, or as soon as possible afterwards. This sort of intensive, in-depth immersion in the group or groups being studied can provide essential insights and build important rapport with research subjects.⁴