FIELD PROCEDURE OF BILLINGUAL APPROACH

The Simple Object Words

By :

Mardiana CB 6th A of PBI

Introduction

 The linguistic data cannot be neatly divided into phonological, morphological and syntactic sections, each to be treated in turn after the preceding one has been fully analyzed. Field procedure is absolutely essential to any adequate analysis or description of a language. For the beginner should have some understanding of the various approaches to collecting data. There are 2 principal methods of approach to acquisition the language data. First is monolingual and second is billingual.

 Monolingual, which there isnt intermediate language that used by the investigator and the informant. Billingual, which there is some intermediate language.

The monolingual approach requires very special initial techniques, but as soon as the investigator can receive explanations of forms within the native language and then the two approaches coincide.
Monolingual approach quickly becomes identical with the billingual one. Since the billingual situation as the more common, the further developments of the field procedure will be treated in relation to it

Discussion

Billingual Approach
There are 3 principal phases of billingual approach a. The nature of the data b. The methods of recording the data c. The informant During the discussion for the first two phases we must take for granted an average informant, who knows something intermediate language, though this knowledge may be, and frequently is limited to a made usage.

 For example, if someone is an Indian in Latin America, he may know some Spanish or Portuguese, but we cant expect him to explain fine distinctions of tense or aspect in his own language or to provide equivalents for the numerous tense fom in Spanish or Portuguese.
Maybe only one mode, and even these do not have any one-to-one correspondence with forms in his own language These practical limitations must always be considered in a realistic field procedure

The Data
There are 6 increasingly complex types of data which the investigator attempts to contain : 1.Simple object words 2.Object words in possible morphological categories 3.Simple process words 4.Process words in possible morphological categories 5.Object and process words in combinations 6.Texts

Simple object Words

First, the investigator must obtain the name of objects. These should be Interprete things to which one may point. E.g. houses, trees, grass, sun, clouds, dogs, etc. The name of such objects are generally as short as any nounlike words, but some sounds may be conspicuous exceptions.

 The investigator must be ask at any one time for words with related semantic areas. Example : - Body parts - Article of clothing - House objects - Industries - Fauna and fllora - etc Should be asked for in their appropriate groupings, rather than jumbles in sequences as head, pants, pot, plow. Semantic grouping makes it easier for the informant, and morphological characteristics often paralel such semantic subdivisions.

 Its absolutely essential that words elicited by culturally partinent. Various peoples manufactured articles, their relationships to one another. This means that no list words will be universally applicable, and hence that the investigator must make up his list. One should exclude minute semantic subdivisions in the initial investigation. Example : in eliciting names of body parts one shoulnt attempt to get further different words for the extremities than arm, hand, finger, leg, foot, toe, etc Language may not make the same distinction and a single native term may be used for arm and hand or hand and finger.

 To ask for such distinctions as upper arm, lower arm, elbow, thumb, palm, wrist, thigh, calf, knee, ankle instep may prove very confusing. Even though a language may make some of this distinctions, many of them will not correspond exactly and the informant isnt likely to know these less familiar terms in the intermediate language. One mudt avoid terms possibly taboo, and in questioning the informant any sign of embarrassement about a particular question should be immediately passed over by asking for some other words.

 Word groupings may provide some basis for selecting similar type of words for a particular culture : 1. Body parts : head, hair of the head, nose, eye, ear, neck, arm, hand, finger, stomach, heart, leg, foot, toe, bone, blood, flesh. 2. Clothing : hat, shirt, pants, sandals, beads, face paint, body paint. 3. House objects : knife, spoon, ladle, water container, animal skin, bed, hammock, fire, mush, bread, flour, meal, grinding stone, mortar, pestle, bananas, oranges, meat. 4. People relationships : father, mother, daughter, son, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, brother in law, sister in law.

5. Articles used in native occupations : machete, hoe, dibble stick, plow, seed, hammer, saw, forge, iron, axe, nails, planks, vines for tying, thatch, canoe, paddles, how, arrow, spear, gun.

6. Fauna : horse, cow, ox, pig, dog, cat, sheep, goat, ass, lion, tiger, jaguar, wildcat, elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhinocheros, antelope, deer, monkey, snake, eagle, hawk, buzzard, sparrow, crane, fly, flea, louse, spider, ant.
7. Geographical and astronomical objects : river, stream, rapids, lake, water hole, hill, mountain, valley, forest, planted field, cleared field, star, sun, moon, cloud.

Closing

 It isnt only valuable to select words by semantic groups, but the order of these groups should be considered also. It has been found from experience experience that some of the easiest forms to obtain are names for body parts, since they can readily be pointed to. Next, may come the names for clothing and objects about the house. But among the other semantic groups there is not much basis for preference. The one difficulty with the words for body parts is that they sometimes occur with obligatory possesive affixes, and this may greatly complicate the initial problems