Bonus 79: Field Notes on linguistic fieldwork - Interview with Martha Tsutsui Billins (Patreon)

Linguists often do research by interviewing people from a particular linguistic community. Sometimes these communities are nearby, sometimes very far away. Sometimes it's a community that the researcher is themselves a member of, sometimes this involves first building relationships with a community where the researcher is an outsider.

In this bonus episode, Lauren gets enthusiastic about the process of doing linguistic fieldwork with Dr. Martha Tsutsui Billins, an Adjunct Teaching Fellow at California State University Fresno, whose name you may recognize from the credits at the end of the show! We talk about Martha's research on politeness in Amami, building relationships on the Ryukyu Islands in Japan, and the role of outsider scholars in language documentation. We also talk about her relationship with the academic job market as an adjunct, her podcast Field Notes interviewing many linguists about their experiences doing linguistic fieldwork, and her role on the Lingthusiasm team helping us research examples for episodes.

Read the transcript here.

Announcements:

We love reading up on an interesting etymology, but the history of a word doesn’t have to define how it’s used now - and to celebrate that we have new merch with the motto ‘Etymology isn’t Destiny’. Our artist, Lucy Maddox has brought these words to life in a beautiful design in black, white, midnight blue, Lingthusiasm green, and rainbow gradient. The etymology isn't destiny design is available on lots of different colours and styles of shirts, hoodies, tank tops, t-shirts: classic fit, relaxed fit, curved fit. Plus mugs, notebooks, stickers, water bottles, zippered pouches, and more!

We also have tons of other Lingthusiastic merch available, it makes a great gift to give to a linguistics enthusiast in your life or to request as a gift from someone. Special shoutout to our IPA chart redesign, which now comes in rectangle (makes an excellent poster), and with a transparent background (makes a great t-shirt)!

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Martha Tsutsui Billins
• Field Notes Podcast
• Wikipedia entry for Ryukyuan languages
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode 'The Most Esteemed Honorifics Episode'

You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Mastodon. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

To chat about this episode and other lingthusiastic topics with your fellow linguistics fans, join us on the Lingthusiasm Discord server.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, and our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.