Theoretical foundations of work. How and why did field linguistics appear? Field structure in linguistics

Field linguistics

Given the dependence on the specific purpose of the study, various methods for detecting linguistic facts are used. The most actively used purposeful interviewing for a specific program.

Field linguistics

Field linguistics

Field linguistics, being an experimental field of knowledge, uses both traditional methods descriptive linguistics, and specific methods.

Field linguistics

The task of the researcher is to effectively influence the language activity of the informant. Under normal conditions, language activity is carried out by speakers spontaneously, and the products of spontaneous speech are the most objective data about the language. Creating conditions as close to natural as possible is optimal, but not always feasible. For example, a tape recorder forces the speaker to control his language activity.

For an ordinary native speaker, working as an informant is an unusual type of linguistic activity, in connection with this, the most valuable ability of an informant is his ability to learn, as well as patience and lack of a sense of ʼʼlanguage prestigeʼʼ (in all cases of difficulty with the answer, do not try to maintain the prestige of a language expert).

Accounting for the "human factor" is the key to successful work. The informant is not an automaton for the production of linguistic expressions, but a living person with all his moods, emotions, interests ...

The most productive are the following methods:

l translation from an intermediary language into an object language(in the original language expression, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ, the researcher suggests, contains such components of meaning, the design of which interests the researcher),

l paradigmatic survey method(paradigmatic relationships are revealed between the language expressions of the object language, for example, various grammatical forms of a word),

l substitution method(replacement in the original statement of one elementary meaning),

l cross method(questions are asked randomly in order to suppress unwanted connections between questions),

l associative method (by association with the current statement, new statements are built),

l paraphrasing,

l suggestive questions(to avoid direct questions of interest to the researcher),

l extracting examples(on the meaning of the word, grammatical meaning),

l stimulus with corrections(intentional distortion of a linguistic expression in the target language in order to verify the correctness of the form that the researcher expects from the informant), etc.

Field linguistics - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Field Linguistics" 2017, 2018.

The field approach to the description of the phenomena of language has become widespread in modern linguistics. Originating in semasiology and associated with the names of I. Trier and W. Porzig, this approach has spread to a wide range of phenomena - lexical groups or paradigms, paradigmatic fields (Trier, Goodenough, Launsbury, Coseriu), syntactic fields (Porcig, Weisgerber), grammatical fields (Adgmoni), grammatical-lexical fields (Gulyga, Shendels), functional-semantic fields (Bondarko), etc. .

In modern linguistics, both individual language fields and the field character of the language as a whole are intensively studied. Ongoing research shows the fruitfulness of the field model language system, which represents the language system as a continuous set of fields that pass into each other with their peripheral zones and have a multilevel character.

The field concept of language makes it possible to solve a number of issues that cannot be resolved within the framework of the traditional stratification-level concept (Popova, Sternin). It has sufficient explanatory power, on the one hand, and methodological value, on the other: confirmation in practical studies of the field organization of language can be extrapolated to the field of method, i.e., the field principle can be applied as general reception analysis of linguistic phenomena and categories, including lexical meaning words.

As shown by the main works in this area (Admoni, 1964; Gulyga, Shendels, 1969; Bondarko, 1971, 1972, 1983; Kuznetsova, 1981), the main provisions of the field concept of language are the following:

• 1. A field is an inventory of elements linked by system relationships.
• 2. The elements that form the field have a semantic commonality and perform a single function in the language.
• 3. The field combines homogeneous and heterogeneous elements.
• 4. The field is formed from constituent parts- microfields, the number of which should be at least two.
• 5. The field has a vertical and horizontal organization. Vertical organization - the structure of microfields, horizontal - the relationship of microfields.
• 6. As part of the field, nuclear and peripheral constituents are distinguished. The nucleus consolidates around the dominant component.
• 7. Nuclear constituents perform the function of the field most unambiguously, are most frequent in comparison with other constituents and are obligatory for this field.
• 8. Between the core and the periphery, the functions performed by the field are distributed: some of the functions fall on the core, and some on the periphery.
• 9. The boundary between core and periphery is blurred.
• 10. Field constituents may belong to the core of one field and the periphery of another field or fields.
• 11. Equal fields partially overlap each other, forming zones of gradual transitions, which is the law of the field organization of the language system.

Thus, the field is of great interest to linguists. When describing linguistic phenomena, the field approach is very fruitful, since it helps to reveal the systemic organization of the language. It is optimally matched to present stage development of linguistic theory to the tasks of highlighting the object of study in its universal and specific language characteristics with equal, mutually balanced consideration of the discreteness of its constituent "units" and the continuity of the language system - one of the most important foundations of its integrity. The idea of ​​the field organization of connections between linguistic phenomena, originally developed in relation to lexical material in the works of German scientists (G. Ipsen, J. Trier, W. Portzig), was then rethought in general principle structure of the language system.

There are many field theories in domestic and foreign scientific literature. Researchers Potebnya, Pokrovsky, Meyer, Shperberg, Ipsen identified some patterns of semantic relationships between language units, as well as types of semantic fields.

R. Meyer distinguishes three types of semantic fields:

• 1) natural (names of trees, animals, body parts, sensory perceptions, etc.)
• 2) artificial (names of military ranks, components of mechanisms, etc.)
• 3) semi-artificial (terminology of hunters or fishermen, ethical concepts, etc.)

He defines a semantic class as “the ordering of a certain number of expressions from one point of view or another, i.e. from the point of view of any one semantic feature, which the author calls a differentiating factor. According to R. Meyer, the task of semasiology is “to establish the belonging of each word to a particular system and to identify the system-forming, differentiating factor of this system”. .

Further study of vocabulary from the point of view of semantic fields is associated with the name of J. Trier, who used the term “semantic field”, which first appeared in the works of G. Ipsen. In his definition, a semantic field is a collection of words that have a common meaning.

The theory of Trier is closely connected with the teachings of W. Humboldt on the internal form of language and the provisions of F. de Saussure on linguistic significance. Trier proceeds from the understanding of the synchronous state of the language as a closed stable system that determines the essence of all its constituent parts. According to Trier, “the words of a particular language are not separate carriers of meaning, each of them, on the contrary, makes sense only because other words adjacent to it also have it.” Trier separated the concepts of "lexical" and "conceptual" field and introduced these terms into everyday life. According to Trier's theory, the field consists of elementary units - concepts and words. At the same time, the constituent components of the verbal field completely cover the scope of the corresponding conceptual field.

Trier suggests a complete parallelism between conceptual and verbal fields. It is generally accepted that the recognition of absolute parallelism between verbal and lexical fields caused the main mistake of J. Trier. In this case, we mean the position according to which the internal form of the language influences, or rather, determines the linguistic picture of the speakers.

Trier's theory has been criticized in several ways: for the logical, and not linguistic, nature of the fields he singles out; for his idealistic understanding of the relationship between language, thinking and reality; for Trier's view of the field as a closed group of words; for the fact that Trier actually ignored polysemy and specific word connections; for allowing complete parallelism between verbal and conceptual fields; for the fact that he rejected the meaning of the word as an independent unit (Trier believed that the meaning of the word is determined by its environment); for studying only names (mainly nouns and adjectives), leaving verbs and stable combinations words.

But, despite such harsh criticism, the works of Trier became an incentive for further research on the field structure.

Thus, two paths have been outlined in the study and development of the theory of semantic fields. Some scientists (L. Weisberg, K. Roining, etc.) studied the paradigmatic relations between the lexical units of the language, i.e. paradigmatic fields. Others (W. Portzig) were engaged in the study of syntagmatic relations and fields. Complex fields were also studied - these are classes of words connected by both paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations.

Paradigmatic fields include the most diverse classes of lexical units that are identical in one or another semantic feature (seme); lexico-semantic groups of words (LSG), synonyms, antonyms, sets of interconnected meanings of a polysemantic word (semanthemes), word-building paradigms, parts of speech and their grammatical categories.

How LSG is interpreted by language fields (although not all of them are called so) other.

So, for example, K. Reuning, studying the modern German and English languages, recognizes the existence of overlapping groups. Along with names, he analyzes other parts of speech, including prepositions, conjunctions, and grammatical means of expressing joy.

In principle, the approach of Reuning (who studied the group of words with the meaning of joy) of joy is not much different from the approach of J. Trier (he studied the group of words with the meaning of mind), since both approaches are, to a certain extent, extralinguistic in nature. For J. Trier, it has a logical, and for K. Roining - a psychological coloring. K. Roining believes that from the point of view of semantics, words are included in different groups, and their semantics depends on the context, while J. Trier's word and its characteristics depend on the place in the system or on the place in the field. But both of them believe that the characteristic of the field is the presence of common values ​​of the lexemes included in it.

The LSG theory was most deeply developed in the studies of L. Weisgerber, F.P. Filin and S.D. Kancelson.

L. Weisgerber's concept of verbal fields is very close to J. Trier's concept. L. Weisgerber also believes that the meaning of a word is not an independent unit of the field, but structural component. “The verbal field lives as a whole,” he points out, “therefore, in order to understand the meaning of its individual component, it is necessary to imagine the entire field and find the place of this component in its structure.”

Each nation has its own principles for dividing the outside world, its own view of the surrounding reality, so the semantic systems of different languages ​​do not coincide. Therefore, it is necessary to look for the principles of dividing the vocabulary into fields in the language itself.

Researcher F.P. Filin, when dividing the language system, uses the concept of “lexico-semantic groups”. By LSG, he understands “lexical associations with homogeneous, comparable meanings”, which are “a specific phenomenon of the language, due to the course of its historical development” .

Varieties of LSG, as he believes, are synonymous series, antonyms, and even lexical groupings with generic relations. From LSG F.P. Owl limits word-derivatives (“nested”) combinations of words, grammatical classes, complexes of meanings polysemantic words and thematic groups (for example, the names of parts of the human body, the terms of pastoralism). These thematic groups usually overlap and even sometimes completely coincide with LSG.

Delimitation of thematic groups from other lexical groupings is associated with certain difficulties. However, researchers of the 20th century identified the criteria for identifying thematic groups and their distinctive features:

Extralinguistic conditionality of relations between its elements. Unlike, for example, LSP, which is an ordered set of word signs, thematic group is a set of material or ideal denotations, denoted by verbal signs - this is the heterogeneity of relations between its members or their complete absence.

Similar or identical, at first glance, groups can form different lexical groupings. If it is necessary to consider the structural-semantic relationships between kinship terms in one language or different languages, we get a lot of word signs: father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, etc., forming a field. The name (name) of the thematic group is, as a rule, the words (and not an artificial formation) - “transport”, etc. It follows from this that the concept of "thematic group" is closely related to the concept of "semantic field".

Along with the interpretation of the field as a paradigmatic phenomenon, more and more works appear in which the most diverse syntactic complexes are interpreted as fields and in which an attempt is made to combine the analysis of paradigmatic and syntagmatic fields.

The term “syntagmatic field” (or syntactic field) was introduced by Porzig W. The term “syntagmatic field” was understood as phrases and syntactic complexes in which the possibility of semantic compatibility of components clearly emerged.

Syntagmatic fields reflect groupings of two types:

• 1) words combined into a syntagma only on the basis of the commonality of their syntagmatic semes, i.e. semantic compatibility. These include, for example, groups of the type “subject+predicate”, “subject+predicate+object”, “subject+predicate+attribute”;
• 2) words combined into a syntagma based on the commonality of their normative valence properties (lexical and grammatical compatibility). These include groups like “noun + adjective”, “verb + adverb”.

Russian linguist Vasiliev L.M. allocates one more type of fields - complex. He says that when paradigmatic and syntagmatic semantic fields are added, complex fields are formed. Such fields are, for example, word-building sequences that include words of different parts of speech along with their paradigmatic correlates (for example, Teacher / teacher ... / teaches (instructs ... / student / student ... /).

So, for example, the "mode" field in English language refers to complex fields, because it includes the most diverse classes of lexical units, identical in meaning and united by syntactic meaning.

The term “associative field”, introduced by S. Bally, has become widespread in linguistics. This term, thanks to new research in the field of psychology, is sometimes used as a synonym for the term "semantic field".

The greatest attention to this issue began to be paid in the early twentieth century. This was originally done by doctors and psychologists, especially in the USA and Germany. One of the most influential was the experiment of G. Kent and A. Rozanov (1910), carried out on 1000 informants with a real psyche. Since that time, the list of words - stimulants, compiled by G. Kent and A. Rozanov, has become the basis for the lists of words - stimuli of other researchers who want not only to study the nature of mental associations, but also consider lexical associations as an indicator of linguistic development and the formation of concepts in subjects .

This approach makes it possible to detect the dependence of lexical associations on various factors, such as age, gender, geographic, etc.

Sometimes instead of the term "associative field" the term "semantic field" is used. The peculiarity of semantic fields of this kind is that when they are established, the stimulus word and its associates are deliberately used, and the volume of the field is determined as a result of an experiment with the subjects, therefore, it is based on the analysis not of the text, but of the psyche of the people participating in the experiment.

Thus, depending on the attribute underlying the classification, linguists distinguish different types of fields: lexico-semantic fields, lexico-semantic groups, thematic series, syntagmatic, complex and associative fields, etc. this moment there is no single typology of groupings and generally accepted criteria for their selection.

However, it is the lexico-semantic field that is the most convenient unit for considering vocabulary by thematic groups.

Field linguistics is called "a set of linguistic methods aimed at independent creative (and not student - according to grammars and textbooks) study and description of a living language that is not native to the researcher" . We are dealing with a situation of field research when a linguist describes a language in which, at least at the beginning of the study, he cannot speak and which he practically does not speak, observing the speech of speakers of this language in a natural speech environment.

The data obtained using the methods of field linguistics have two important applications. First, they are of great theoretical interest: they can be used to build and verify models of interlingual variation that predict what may and may not occur in the languages ​​of the world. Secondly, field linguistic research is the only way to describe and document endangered languages: to compile grammars, dictionaries and databases of texts, audio recordings. This task is more than relevant today: there are about 7 thousand languages ​​in the world, it is very likely that by the end of the century there will be no more than a hundred of them.

From the history of field linguistics Franz Boas, Founder American school anthropology and at the same time the descriptivist direction of linguistics (Wikipedia, Canadian Museum of Civilizations) One of the first full-fledged linguistic descriptions appeared in Greece in the 1st millennium BC. They were created to solve specific practical problems, the main of which was the task of teaching. We are not talking about teaching the mother's language: the task of learning to read and write in the native language, although it was primary (in Greece before the Hellenistic era, simply teachers of reading and writing were called a grammarian), does not require the study of the language system. However, when in the Hellenistic era Greek language became the language of culture and office work in a number of states, there was a need to learn a foreign language and, in connection with this, to learn this language. It is no coincidence that the center of the Greek tradition was not Greece, but Alexandria, far from it, where the Greeks were an alien population.

Until the 18th century, European scientists turned exclusively to the data of ancient and modern European languages, occasionally to Hebrew. However, now the scope of their linguistic interests has expanded significantly, they are also interested in "exotic" languages. This is due to the active missionary and natural research activities in Russia and in the European colonies in the 18th and - especially - in the 19th century. In 1786-1791, a four-volume dictionary by P.S. Pallas, which included data from 276 languages, in early XIX century, “Mithridates, or General Linguistics” by I.Kh. Adelunga, with comments by I.S. Vater, which included information about several hundred languages ​​known by that time; it was accompanied by a translation of the prayer "Our Father" into almost 500 languages. However, neither the missionaries nor the naturalists involved in the collection of linguistic data were actually professional linguists; they pursued completely different goals: first of all, the translation of the Bible into the languages ​​of the indigenous peoples of the colonized territories. Professional linguists at that time preferred to use the information obtained by missionaries to solve the problems of comparative historical linguistics; they did not yet think about field linguistics as such. A.E. Kibrik processes the material. Photo by the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of Moscow State University (hTTP://darWin.Philol.msu.ru) Comparative historical studies dominated linguistics until the beginning of the 20th century, when anthropological studies of Indian peoples became popular in the USA, which included language, which contributed to the formation of a new linguistic direction - descriptivism. The period of dominance of descriptivism in American linguistics was extremely fruitful in terms of the production of linguistic descriptions and the development of field linguistics in general. At the same time, a reform of the linguistic method was required, since traditional methods turned out to be unsuitable for new purposes. This is due to the fact that, firstly, now the problem of describing the synchronous state of the language has come to the fore, whereas earlier scientists were mainly interested in diachronic studies. Secondly, new fundamental problems have arisen, such as the need to create an objective procedure for dividing a text into words. In addition, the non-universality of lexical categories became obvious, in particular, the impossibility of establishing a correspondence between words in Indian languages ​​and their translations into European languages(which led to the formation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity), as well as the problem of non-universality grammatical categories.
Pamir, 1969. Writing text. in the center - A.E. Kibrik, on the right - V.I. Belikov. Photo by the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of Moscow State University (http://darwin.philol.msu.ru) Methodologically revolutionary was the emergence of a new participant in linguistic research - an informant, who previously attracted little attention (because of this, in particular, the majority had a low level of missionary grammars). Working with the informant contributed to the solution of a broader task - the creation of rigorous and verifiable procedures for describing the language, applicable to any material, including the native language of the researcher.

Around the same time, in the 1920s and 30s, the most active language policy, the so-called language building, was carried out in the USSR. Since the Soviet state was formed as a system of hierarchically ordered national formations within which the official functions were to be performed by the language of the respective people, extensive work was needed to standardize languages, write grammars, dictionaries, textbooks, and, of course, work to eliminate illiteracy. At the beginning of the 1920s, a course was pursued everywhere for the “indigenization” of all party and state structures, that is, for the widest possible involvement of the local population in administrative activities. It was assumed that Russian population the national republics will gradually master the local languages, and party functionaries simply had to do it. E.D. Polivanov and N.F. Yakovlev. The body that carried out the work on language construction was the All-Union Central Committee of the New Alphabet that existed in 1925-37. Under his auspices, about 80 alphabets for the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR were compiled at a high scientific level, in addition, grammars and dictionaries of languages ​​were published. In the late 1930s, however, not without the influence of academician N.Ya. Marr, the language building work was largely curtailed.

At the end of the 20th century, a new task of field linguistics was formulated - fixing the data of endangered languages. Initially, only the fundamental aspect was meant - the value of these data for linguistic science itself. Today, the ethical side of the issue is increasingly being considered: the preservation of linguistic diversity is presented to the general linguistic and non-linguistic public as an unconditional benefit. Moreover, it is often argued that the practical task of describing small languages ​​and saving them from extinction has an undoubted priority over the development of theoretical problems and that it is this type of work that society requires from a linguist^]. In addition, a new look at field linguistics also entails changes in methodology: textbooks contain sections on the ethics of field research, the informant ceases to be an object-provider of linguistic data and is viewed as a human being with a complex psyche and often unpredictable reactions, to which it is necessary to find the right approach. It is also noteworthy that for the first time the question of feedback with the ethnic community whose language is being studied. From now on, the linguist should not be limited to collecting materials and publishing grammar, which is hardly understandable to the layman, but also to do something for the community: write a textbook, vocabulary, organize language training, etc. Local residents throughout the village help to look for materials for the dictionary. Author's photo A bit about the methodology

Field linguistics is close in methodology to the natural sciences: data for analysis are obtained through observation and experiment. Observation consists in collecting spontaneous texts in the language: fairy tales, life stories, dialogues. It allows you to get the language material that is obviously found in natural speech, but a significant drawback is the uncontrollability and incompleteness of the data; for example, to collect inflectional paradigms of all words, a very large corpus of texts is needed. The experiment consists in referring to the "generator" of data in the language of the object of study, i.e. to the informant, which is a means of obtaining information of the type specified by the researcher. However, since we are dealing with two human beings, a researcher and an informant, it is extremely difficult to “clear” the experiment from the manifestation of interference of various kinds and the human factor in general. For example, there is the problem of differences in social position and the linguistic prestige of the intermediary language when the informant adjusts to the speech of the researcher, especially with direct questions (for example, after the question "How do you pronounce the word X?" you can expect the answer "Just like you" ).

Unlike an ethnographer, a linguist is not obliged to leave for the "field" for a long time. The time spent working with an informant directly correlates with the amount of material received, so scientists spend in the “field” once a year from 2 weeks to 2 months, during which they collect enough data for analysis, and the rest of the time they process and analyze the received data. material. During the analysis, as a rule, clarifying questions arise, which the linguist asks at the next stage. On average, it takes about five years to write a grammar, a grammar essay can be written in a year, having gone on one expedition - the period largely depends on the degree of knowledge of the language and language family, - while a monumental work, including a dictionary, a detailed grammar and a corpus of texts, can take a lifetime.
1st Nenets expedition, 2003. Pos. Ielmin Ios, Yenets Autonomous Okrug. Work with the informant: M. Ivanov and Elena Egorovna. Photo by the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of Moscow State University (http://darwin.philol.msu.ru) As a rule, local residents are well received by a linguistic scientist, especially if he can express himself in the language he is studying and does not delve into subtle issues, such as secret languages, taboo vocabulary or religious life. The social prestige of the people in the eyes of the neighbors and in the eyes of the administration is connected with the prestige of the language, which can greatly increase after the publication of the grammar: the language acquires an official status, so the people can claim certain political rights. In general, the nature of a linguist's communication with local residents strongly depends on their traditional attitude towards Europeans in general, and to a particular country in particular. Thus, the attitude of the inhabitants of the former colonies towards the representatives of the metropolis is often negative. Extremes also happen: once, suspicious residents of a Guinean village imprisoned a Russian linguist, suspecting him of espionage, as soon as he took out a map of the area, intending to study the dialect composition of the language - however, fortunately, they were soon released.

Maria Khachaturyan,
Institute of Linguistics RAS,
Institute of Oriental Languages
and civilizations (INALCO, France)

In preparing the material, the following works were used:

1. Kibrik A.E., Methods of field research (on the formulation of the problem), Moscow: Moscow University Press, 1972.

2. Lehmann Ch. Documentation of endangered languages. A priority task for linguistics. Contribution to: International Conference "Linguistics by the End of the XXth Century" 1.-4.2.1995, Moscow, abstract.

3. Alpatov V.M., History of linguistic teachings. Tutorial. Moscow: Languages ​​of Slavic Cultures, 2005.

FIELD LINGUISTICS, a linguistic discipline that develops and practices methods for obtaining information about a language unknown to a researcher based on work with its native speakers. Field linguistics is implicitly opposed to “armchair” linguistics, for which the source of data is either the linguistic intuition of the researcher himself, who is a native speaker of the language being studied or at least has a good command of it, or an extensive corpus of texts in the language being studied, about which, again, enough is known to to study it without resorting to the judgments of its bearers. The very name "field linguistics" was formed with an eye to the research practice of disciplines, the occupation of which involves "departure into the field"; among the humanities, folklore and cultural anthropology became such before linguistics; historically, field linguistics was largely formed under strong influence the latter or simply within its framework - it is enough to mention the fact that the classics of linguistic science of the 20th century. E. Sapir and B. Whorf were simultaneously outstanding anthropologists, and the classics of anthropology B. Malinovsky (1884–1942) and F. Boas made a significant contribution to the science of language.

On the globe there are more than six thousand natural languages. Their exact number is still unknown, firstly, because of the eternal problem of delimiting languages ​​and dialects, and, secondly, because of the incompleteness of our knowledge about many of them. Interestingly, in a periodically updated international publication Ethnologue. Languages ​​of the World the number of fixed languages ​​grows from edition to edition. The 11th edition (1988) includes information on 6170 languages, and in the 14th edition (2000) there are already 6809 of them.

Languages ​​are strikingly different from each other in a number of social parameters. The most important of them include:

1. Number of speakers. In total, the ten largest languages ​​have over 50 million speakers each; more than a million people speak about a hundred languages. The number of languages ​​each spoken by less than five thousand people is in the thousands, and many hundreds are spoken by only a few people.

2. Functional styles. A number of languages ​​are used in all functional styles, having a literary norm ( literary language), providing communication in economic activity, science, religion, politics, office work, court, education, in the media mass media as well as in the family and Everyday life. Other languages ​​have a narrower range of functions, and the vast majority are used only in the field of everyday communication.

3. Social status. Some languages ​​have status state language and appropriate state support, others are the languages ​​of interethnic communication in a certain geographical area, and others are used only by a separate ethnic group.

4. The presence of writing. Some languages ​​have been written for many centuries, and even millennia, a huge number of written texts, reflecting the long path of their existence and development; others are young-written, having received writing only in modern times; most languages ​​are still unwritten, existing only in the realm of oral communication.

5. The prospect of survival. It is known that languages ​​not only arise, but also die. In the last century alone, mankind has lost several hundred languages, some of which linguists managed to describe. In today's era of globalization information processes the question of the survival of languages ​​takes on a dramatic shape. According to optimistic forecasts by the end of the 21st century. only 25% of current languages ​​will be preserved, according to pessimistic ones - only 5%.

The inequality of languages ​​is exacerbated by the varying degree of their knowledge. At one extreme, there are languages ​​that have a long tradition of studying them, which are the object of professional linguistic activity of a huge number of specialists, and at the other, there are many languages ​​​​that are practically unstudied, having at best one or two publications on particular issues of their structure. This inequality is not accidental, it reflects the social significance of different languages. However, there is another aspect - the importance of a particular language for linguistic theory. And from this point of view, there are no important and secondary languages, all languages ​​are equally interesting for science. Therefore, the lack of adequate descriptions of the absolute majority of human languages, especially in the light of the impending real threat to the existence of most of them, puts the question of description among the most relevant for linguistics.

In linguistics, the practice of description has developed, in which the researcher of a language is most often at the same time its native speaker: he speaks it as a native (or, in extreme cases, as an acquired) language. The technique of describing “mastered” languages ​​essentially relies on the presence of an unlimited number of written texts, on the one hand, and the possibility of using the method of “introspection” (the researcher using himself as an expert in constructing and interpreting linguistic expressions of a given language) on the other. The researcher is deprived of both when studying a "weakly described" language. Access to the language is possible only by accessing language competence native speaker, which is provided by field linguistics.

Field linguistics began to take shape in the 19th century, when linguists turned to previously unstudied languages ​​from various parts of the world. In Russia, the pioneers of field linguistics were P.K. Uslar, who intensively studied languages North Caucasus, and V.G. Bogoraz (1965–1936), who studied the languages Far East. in the United States at the end of the 19th century. F. Boas laid the foundations for field studies of the languages ​​of the North American Indians, which were of great importance for the formation of descriptive linguistics in the future.

In the second half of the 20th century field research has covered a significant number of languages ​​on all continents; in the USSR, almost all languages ​​became the object of field linguistics to one degree or another.

Field linguistics is a part of descriptive linguistics, differing from it by the presence of a number of specific methods.

First of all, field linguistics, being an experimental field of knowledge, uses special methods for extracting linguistic information. Field linguistics is inextricably linked with a native speaker, who is an intermediary between the researcher and the language. The researcher obtains all information about the language through active interaction with someone who speaks the given language as a mother tongue and serves as an expert for the researcher, whose knowledge about the language the researcher needs to extract (such a native speaker is usually called an informant/translator). Usually the informant has no special training and is an inexperienced native speaker. Namely, he has the ability for linguistic activity, and the source of information about the language for the researcher is the products of his linguistic activity. At the same time, the task of the researcher is to effectively influence the language activity of the informant. Under normal conditions, language activity is carried out by speakers spontaneously, and the products of spontaneous speech are the most objective data about the language. Creating conditions as close to natural as possible is optimal, but not always feasible. Even tape recording of speech forces the speaker to control his language activity, and it is desirable that he does not notice the recording (this is achieved by working with the tape recorder on for a long time).

However, the facts of spontaneous speech are completely insufficient for a systematic study of the language, and the active method of purposeful interviewing according to a specific program prevails in field work. The informant should not be involved in the professional side of the interview; he is faced with the task of answering the researcher's questions aimed at obtaining the necessary language data. This can be a translation from an intermediary language (in which the researcher and the informant communicate), determining the correctness of the language expressions offered by the researcher, comparing language expressions in terms of differences in their meaning, and many other types of interviews.

For different types Informant work has different requirements. In some situations, the ability to generate narrative texts is important, in others, the ability to organize a dialogue and involve another informant, the main subject, in it, in others, to have linguistic intuition and the ability to update the extralinguistic context that is natural for a given linguistic expression, especially when establishing exact meanings. similar in meaning linguistic expressions. For an ordinary native speaker, working as an informant is an unusual type of linguistic activity, so the most valuable ability of an informant is his ability to learn, as well as his patience and lack of a sense of “linguistic prestige” (in all cases of difficulty with the answer, do not try to maintain the prestige of a language expert).

Taking into account the "human factor" is the key to successful work. The informant is not an automaton for the production of linguistic expressions, but a living person with his own moods, emotions, interests, ambitions, knowledge and beliefs, natural human weaknesses and a unique combination of abilities. All this must be taken into account and strive to develop interest in this work, the pace of which should be optimal, without overworking or relaxing the informant. In the course of work, both the informant and the researcher are trained.

Effective field work involves not just capturing linguistic data, but extracting from them the underlying linguistic structure. It requires use depending on the specific purpose of the study various methods discovery of grammatical facts (as they sometimes say, the discovery of grammar). The most productive are the following technologies: translation from an intermediary language into an object language(the original language expression offered by the researcher contains such components of meaning, the design of which interests the researcher), paradigmatic survey method(paradigmatic relations are revealed between the linguistic expressions of the language-object, for example, various grammatical forms of a word), substitution method(replacement in the original statement of one elementary meaning), cross method(questions are asked randomly in order to suppress unwanted connections between questions), associative method(by association with the current statement, new statements are built), paraphrasing, suggestive questions(to avoid direct questions of interest to the researcher), extracting examples(on the meaning of the word, grammatical meaning), stimulus with corrections(intentional distortion of a linguistic expression in the target language in order to verify the correctness of the form that the researcher expects from the informant), etc.

One should be calm about the fact that in the process of working with an informant errors of recording and interpretation inevitably occur. The following factors contribute to this:

- the desire of the informant to literal translation to the language-object with a violation of grammatical and semantic naturalness;

- adaptation to the "ignorance" of the researcher, leading to a conscious simplification of speech;

– the pressure of paradigmatic questioning out of context;

- expectation error, when the informant waited for a different question than the one asked;

– various non-linguistic factors;

- erroneous ideas of the researcher about the language-object, leading to incorrect recording or translation, etc.

Since the researcher, being a non-native speaker, does not have the ability to control these errors by introspection, they are not directly recognized. In view of this, all collected information about the language must be verified, and special data verification methods are aimed at this. These include the above-mentioned cross-interrogation, control check of data with different informants, control check of data and interpretations by different researchers (during collective field work), pressure of the system - finding contradictions in the data, based on the hypothesis interpreting them, deepening knowledge about the language - than The more a researcher knows about the language, the easier it is for him to notice an error in the data and prevent it himself.

The language documentation assumes the following main components. First, it's a collection spontaneous texts. Texts are the most important empirical base both for constructing the grammar of a language and its verification, and for a wide variety of purposes not foreseen in advance in this study. Collecting and adequate fixation of texts for an unwritten language is an extremely time-consuming task. This is a multi-step process, and writing oral speech, despite numerous practical and theoretical difficulties, is only the initial stage. The collection of texts in their final version should provide an explicit and full information about all its elements. This implies consistent transcription, morphological division with glossing (attributing forms to specific dictionary units) and adequate translation. Practice shows that text processing requires the involvement of all grammatical and vocabulary information about the language. A well-documented text ascribes form and meaning to all of its linguistic units (morphemes, words, phraseological units, syntactic components). It should also be provided with the necessary cultural information. Sometimes clarification is needed about the situation in which fixed discourse developed, especially in the case of dialogic texts.

An equally important component is dictionary. A modern dictionary is not only a dictionary with translation equivalents. A dictionary entry should contain morphological and syntactic information about the word (paradigmatic characteristics, management model, compatibility restrictions), examples of its use in the main meanings, occurrence in phraseological combinations.

Finally, the language documentation suggests creating grammar. Grammar is the author's interpretation of texts and vocabulary. In languages ​​with rich morphology, an important component of its documentation is the collection grammatical paradigms(sets of inflection forms).

The ultimate goal of the field work is to describe the language of the object. What are the methods of such a description? To a large extent, they depend on the theory of language that the researcher adheres to. It is only important to have a good idea of ​​what kind of theory it is. The point of view shared by some scientists that theory is not needed and it is enough to proceed from common sense is very dangerous: we are never free from many presumptions about the structure of language that affect our linguistic consciousness. Since the researcher may encounter a language arbitrarily distant from his mother tongue and from other languages ​​known to him, he will either be baffled, or will describe it through the prism of languages ​​known to him, distorting it beyond recognition.

In recent decades, typology has made a significant breakthrough in the linguistic theory of linguistic variation, and it is not surprising that it is field linguistics, which deals with "unusual languages", that is the most theoretical. And vice versa, the results of field research are most in demand precisely in typology, which needs facts as much as possible. more languages ​​of the world.

Alexander Kibrik