Elicitation sessions | MPI Archives

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Imperatives

Elicitation session by Allegra Robertson on imperatives in Warao

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In this elicitation session, Derrick Henry helps identify various birds by listening to the recordings of their calls from the Macaulay Library, and discusses the cultural importance of the various birds.

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In this elicitation session, Jacob Blake first explains in English the content of a traditional story he told in Warao on a different occassion, a story about "lakaatata", the red-throated caracara (Ibycter americanus), (see session wrmr20170327story01). Subsequently both Jacob Blake and his son, Ronald Blake, help identify various birds by listening to the recordings of their calls from the Macaulay Library. Both consultants also discuss the cultural importance of the various birds.

wrmr20170326eli02

In this elicitation session, Jacob Blake and his son, Ronald Blake help identify various birds by listening to the recordings of their calls from the Macaulay Library. Both consultants also discuss the cultural importance of the various birds.

wrmr20170330eli01

In this elicitation session, Jacob Blake helps identify various birds by listening to the recordings of their calls from the Macaulay Library. He also discuss the cultural importance of the various birds and occasionally explains things in Warao, translating them into English at the same time.

wrmr20170330eli02

n this elicitation session, Jacob Blake helps identify various birds by listening to the recordings of their calls from the Macaulay Library. He also discuss the cultural importance of the various birds and occasionally explains things in Warao, translating them into English at the same time.

wrmr20180811eli01

This sessions is part of a series of sessions focusing on various grammatiacal features of Warao. The sessions cover various topics. Most of the questions posed by the researcher stem serve to clarify the grammatical structures that appear in the previously made recordings, those depositing in the Miscellaneous narratives and Oral traditions folder.

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Details

Persistent Identifier: https://hdl.handle.net/1839/53255d65-f65a-4766-907d-13eedf5bf276
Description: This collection contains audio recordings of elicitation session conducted with speakers of Warao. The sessions were conducted throughout the project but most of them were recorded between August and September 2018, when Dr. Rybka was collecting data for a grammatical sketch of Warao (Romero-Figueroa and Rybka n.d). “Elicitation sessions” are be understood here specifically as sessions during which Warao grammatical and lexical structures were elicited with any of the following methods. First, the participants may have been asked to provide Warao equivalents of English words and clauses produced by the researcher. Second, the participants may have been instructed to react in Warao to a situation described by the researcher in English. Third, the participants may have been invited to judge the felicity of Warao clauses produced by the researcher. The three methods require a short commentary. First, elicitation sessions were conducted in the contact language which within the sessions is referred to by the participants and the researcher as “English”. It should be noted, however, that the language spoken by the researcher and his assistants—some of whom are native speakers of English, and some of whom are a non-native speaker of English—is not necessarily the same as the second language spoken by the Warao. The Warao speak what can be described as variants on a spectrum from Guyanese English (a variety of English spoken in Guyana) to Guyanese Creole English (an English-based creole spoken in Guyana). Given the lack of a common contact language, the elicitation sessions should be taken as entry points to explore Warao phenomena, ultimately confirmed by the analysis of naturally occurring speech documented by recordings deposited in other subcollections. Second, given that the third method consists in providing “felicity judgments”, two issues have to be mentioned. It is clear to the researcher that the participants did not judge the clauses produced by him solely on their grammaticality, but also on their appropriateness in a particular situation or their general felicity in the speaker’s worldview. It is for this reason that they are called “felicity”, and not “grammaticality”, judgments. Which factor underpins a particular decision on the part of the speaker often cannot be inferred from the answers and must be investigated through the corpus of natural speech. It merits a mention, however, that the researcher and the participants established a friendly, egalitarian rapport and that the speakers’ felt comfortable correcting the researcher. More generally, the researcher did not observe among the Guyanese Warao the type of cultural code described for the Venezuelan Warao (Herrmann n.d.) that would prevent the participants from correcting the researcher.

Detailed Metadata

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lat-corpus
- History : NAME:imdi2cmdi.xslt DATE:2018-10-25T15:49:24.14+02:00.
- Name : Elicitation sessions
- Title : Elicitation sessions
- descriptions
  Description : This collection contains audio recordings of elicitation session conducted with speakers of Warao. The sessions were conducted throughout the project but most of them were recorded between August and September 2018, when Dr. Rybka was collecting data for a grammatical sketch of Warao (Romero-Figueroa and Rybka n.d). “Elicitation sessions” are be understood here specifically as sessions during which Warao grammatical and lexical structures were elicited with any of the following methods. First, the participants may have been asked to provide Warao equivalents of English words and clauses produced by the researcher. Second, the participants may have been instructed to react in Warao to a situation described by the researcher in English. Third, the participants may have been invited to judge the felicity of Warao clauses produced by the researcher. The three methods require a short commentary. First, elicitation sessions were conducted in the contact language which within the sessions is referred to by the participants and the researcher as “English”. It should be noted, however, that the language spoken by the researcher and his assistants—some of whom are native speakers of English, and some of whom are a non-native speaker of English—is not necessarily the same as the second language spoken by the Warao. The Warao speak what can be described as variants on a spectrum from Guyanese English (a variety of English spoken in Guyana) to Guyanese Creole English (an English-based creole spoken in Guyana). Given the lack of a common contact language, the elicitation sessions should be taken as entry points to explore Warao phenomena, ultimately confirmed by the analysis of naturally occurring speech documented by recordings deposited in other subcollections. Second, given that the third method consists in providing “felicity judgments”, two issues have to be mentioned. It is clear to the researcher that the participants did not judge the clauses produced by him solely on their grammaticality, but also on their appropriateness in a particular situation or their general felicity in the speaker’s worldview. It is for this reason that they are called “felicity”, and not “grammaticality”, judgments. Which factor underpins a particular decision on the part of the speaker often cannot be inferred from the answers and must be investigated through the corpus of natural speech. It merits a mention, however, that the researcher and the participants established a friendly, egalitarian rapport and that the speakers’ felt comfortable correcting the researcher. More generally, the researcher did not observe among the Guyanese Warao the type of cultural code described for the Venezuelan Warao (Herrmann n.d.) that would prevent the participants from correcting the researcher.