Chapter 4 Data Collection

Chapter 4 Data collection This chapter describes the methods used in data collection and information about the fieldwork trips, the stimuli used, the participants and the subsequent data annotation for the YSL research. The chapter is organized as follows: section 4.1 describes the places where the data were collected, 4.2 explains what types of data were gathered and what elicitation methods were used. In section 4.3 I present the essential information about the participants of the study before discussing the tran- scription and encoding of the collected sign language material in 4.4. 4.1. Fieldwork The analysis presented here is based on data primarily collected during two periods of fieldwork between August 2009 and July 2010. On the first fieldtrip, the fieldwork took place in the city of Darwin, the capital of Northern Territory, Australia (see Figure 9). During the second fieldtrip data was collected in two places in North East Arnhem Land: in Mapuru and in Galiwin’ku at the Elcho Island (see Figure 9). 4.1.1. Fieldwork sites During the fieldwork in 2009, the data were collected from two language informants, who were staying in Darwin for temporary work as language interpreters and originally stem from Galiwin’ku (Elcho Island), where subsequent data collection took place. Both women can hear but have a deaf sibling with whom they maintain sign language contact on a regular basis. The second fieldwork, in 2010, started in northeast Arnhem Land, the Yolngu native land in a remote Aboriginal homeland community, Mapuru, with a population of approximately 70 people including 30–40 children (see Figure 9 and Figure 10). Mapuru (see Figure 5) is situated on the mainland neatly 600 km away from Darwin (see Figure 9 & Figure 10) and was established by two families in the 1960s. There is one school in Mapuru where various languages are spoken (Greatorex, 2010 personal communication). Due to the remoteness of this community, a great deal more organization Fieldwork 55 Figure 9. Northern part of the Northern Territory, Australia51 Figure 10. Map of North East Arnhem Land, with fieldwork locations indicated52 56 Data collection and flexibility was required. A research permit had to be obtained from the Northern Land Council before entering the Aboriginal community. Finance and provisions had to be well prepared in advance: The nearest post office and bank are both situated in Darwin, approximately 600 km away; the closest store is located in Galiwin’ku, which can be reached via air charter in about half an hour. However, during the wet season between October and March the high quantities of rain can lead to the closure of Mapuru’s airstrip and cancellation of all the flights. Similarly, cyclones in April 2011 flooded all access roads to the central Arnhem Highway and to the boat landings, cutting off the region entirely and leading to the cancellation of medical, mail, diesel, fresh food or emergency equipment flights from Darwin or Galiwin’ku. To minimize the difficulties arising from the weather conditions, the fieldwork had to be conducted during the dry season months. Many adult residents of Mapuru were competent in Yolngu Sign Language with varying levels of fluency. All of the community members were hearing. One member’s deaf sister, who lives in one of the nearest settlements of Gapuwiyak (approximately 50km away from Mapuru), comes to Mapuru very often and interacts with the people in this sign language. Two of the elders agreed to participate in various elicitation sessions and allowed their signed conversation to be recorded on video. The second stop on this field trip was Galiwin’ku settlement, which was originally established as a Methodist mission. Galiwin’ku is situated on the Elcho Island (see Figure 9 and Figure 10) and lies approximately 700 kilo- meters to the east of Darwin. Galiwin’ku is approximately 60 km long and 6 km wide and belongs to one of the most remote and largest Aboriginal settlements in Australia. Galiwin’ku is located near the island’s southern tip and is the main settlement on the island next to further homelands such as Gäwa, Ban’thula, Djurranalpi, Ŋayawili (First Creek) and others (see Figure 11). The settlement is populated by approximately 2200 Yolngu54, made up of some 60 different mala (hereditary groups) whose homelands are spread across the whole region (Gumbula, 2005) and a handful of non-Indigenous administrators, community workers and teachers. The exact Yolngu population in Galiwin’ku is unknown, since it varies widely when many of the residents migrate to the outstations during the wet season. In Galiwin’ku, I was able to work with deaf and hearing signers competent in YSL (see Table 4). On all occasions, I was guided by a multilingual language assistant and experienced interpreter. She constantly guided me through the web of Yolngu kin relations: ‘He is your gurruŋ (cousin), stay away from him’. Fieldwork 57 Figure 11. Elcho Island and the settlement of Galiwin’ku53 4.1.2. Cultural issue Yolngu people exist in a world with an important system of kinship struc- ture as social organization and ‘moral order’ (Morphy, 2008) which is very different to Western societies. Similar to many other Australian Aboriginal societies, Yolngu is a kin-based society determined by kin relations between people (McGregor, 2012). To be assimilated into the community, I was given a Yolngu name (Guyula) and adopted into the system of Yolngu kinship (Wamuttjan). Establishing my role in the community was critical to conducting any field research without disrupting the Yolngu way of life. When Yolngu visit their relatives, the position of the visitor within this kinship system must be ascertained, if unclear prior to that. Only after the relation- ships of the ‘domestic moral economy’ (Morphy, 2008) are established, can the members of the group engage one another appropriately. Every effort is made to help children internalize the system of kinship relations from a young age. Research shows that children grasp the structures of Yolngu kinship as early as by the age of 8 (Williams, 1981, p. 117). In case Yolngu invite a balanda, a non-Yolngu, to their community, the balanda’s place within the gurruṯu, the Yolngu kinship system, must be established if they were to engage in an ongoing relationship. After “adopting” a balanda into 58 Data collection a family, a stranger becomes an existent entity in Yolngu world (Watson & Chambers, 1989). This act of adoption allowed for the opening of dialogue, observation, association with the new “kin” and participation in various gath- erings. In such process of adoption, I was assigned a place in the hierarchy of the community, which guided my interaction with Yolngu members. 4.2. Stimulus materials In this section, the methods of data collection are reviewed. All data refer- enced in this book was collected by the author, except a recording with dura- tion of ca. 10 minutes done by one of the teachers at Shepherdon College at Galiwin’ku in 2009. This video was kindly made available for my YSL study with the written permission of the school and the two signers seen in this video. These two hearing signers are, thus, not counted as participants of the present study (see Table 4). The two women are both in the 60s and live in Galiwin’ku. In 2009, both spontaneous and elicited data were collected with two hearing signers. Approximately two hours of video footage was recorded. Similarly in 2010, a total of five and a half hours of spontaneous and elicited video footage was acquired with fourteen deaf and hearing signers (see Table 4). The total raw recordings (approximately eight hours) were later reduced to six hours and eighteen minutes of edited footage. As shown in Table 3, two types of data were collected 1) spontaneous dialogs and monologs of personal narratives and 2) stimulus-based elicited signing (for information about the distribution of data among the participants see Table 5). Table 3. Types of collected YSL data Elicited signing Spontaneous signing Total 267, 20 min (72%) 103 min (28%) Visual material 173 min (47%) Questionnaires 17, 20 min (4%) and games Translation from 77, 20 min (21%) English and Djambarrpuyŋu 371 min (100%) Stimulus materials 59 4.2.1. Spontaneous signing Almost 30% (see Table 3) of the collected data is spontaneous signing, which was enacted for recording purposes without the use of any specific props such as pictures or toys. Spontaneous YSL data thus include free monologs or dialogs on various topics without the interference of the researcher. It must be kept in mind, however, that such data do not represent a natural conversation. It was rather produced for data collection purposes only. Natural data presents actual communicative routines of the participants, which are being observed or recorded by the researcher (see Himmelmann, 2004, pp. 71ff. for a typology of communicative events with respect to their ‘naturalness’). It was, unfortunately, not possible to record any natural interaction in Yolngu Sign Language. During the field trips, in addition to the formal recording sessions of spontaneous and elicted data, some naturalistic signing could be observed in the communities. These observations play a role in contributing to the discussion of the usage of this sign language in the Yolngu communities today (see section 3.5). However, the linguistic analysis of YSL to follow in the next chapters is based only on the spontaneous and elicited data collected for this study. Therefore, additional naturalistic data must be collected in order to produce conclusive results in this segment of the study. Moreover, it must be emphasized, that more systematic collection and further analysis of YSL data has yet to be undertaken to ensure accuracy.

Load more