Research Articles

What elicitation misses: dominant languages, dominant semantics

Author
  • David Bradley

Abstract

When work in a language is conducted through the filter of a language of elicitation, many semantic fields may be reshaped due to the categories assumed by the fieldworker. This problem is particularly acute where the language being elicited is endangered and in the process of being replaced by a dominant language used as language of elicitation, and language consultants also speak the dominant language. Examples will be drawn from several semantic fields in some endangered Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages which contain more semantic categories than the dominant languages (Chinese, Thai, Nepali, etc.) which are replacing them. The examples cited include deixis, time ordinals, kin group classifiers, and special classifiers.

Another filtering issue which arises in translation is whether to translate literally or to make culturally appropriate adjustments to translations. Often such judgements result in choices which may convey a different meaning. This kind of problem is not restricted to translation from a dominant language or into an endangered language.

Keywords: field linguistics, elicitation, semantic fields, endangered languages, dominant languages, Tibeto-Burman languages, deixis, time ordinals, kin group classifiers, special classifiers, filtering, literalism, meaning

How to Cite:

Bradley, D., (2007) “What elicitation misses: dominant languages, dominant semantics”, Language Documentation and Description 4, 136-144. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd264

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Published on
31 Jul 2007
Peer Reviewed