Field Research: Heritage German
As a founding member of the Language Contact & Attrition Lab @ Penn State, I had the privilege of joining Michael T. Putnam and B. Richard Page on three field research trips to Kansas. The research objective of the LCC group is to better understand how grammar systems that are in contact situations for an extended period of time change and are maintenance, as well as the sociolinguistic contexts that condition these grammars. In our field research, we worked with Mennonite heritage German speakers of different German source dialects (Palatinate and Low German). Our investigations included the development, maintenance, attrition, and restructuring of the phonological and grammatical systems of their heritage German. Furthermore, we aimed to capture their socio-linguistic historic background. More information about the research I conducted with the lab group can be found on the LCC web page and under Publications.
Our research questions led us to employ a variety of field-linguistic and psycholinguistic methodologies, skills that became crucial for my dissertation and future career. I have learned to
Our research questions led us to employ a variety of field-linguistic and psycholinguistic methodologies, skills that became crucial for my dissertation and future career. I have learned to
- elicit natural data using picture books and movie clips
- conduct socio-historic linguistic background interviews
- design experiments eliciting specific linguistic phenomena
- program experiments in PEBL and PsychoPy
- transcribe audio files in ELAN
- measure human speech in Praat
- present the research we conducted in talks and posters at conferences
- write up our research in publications.
Funding sources for the field research:
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages
Max Kade German-American Research Institute
Global Programs of Penn State
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages
Max Kade German-American Research Institute
Global Programs of Penn State