Guernsey Fieldtrip

1
Guernsey Fieldtrip

• 19th March 4th April
• 2009

2
Where?
Eiouque?
3
Guernesiais
Dgernezyei

• Variety of Norman French
• In 2001 Census out of a population of 60000 only
  1327 fluent speakers, 75 over the age of 64.
• In a diglossic situation with English, and
  historically with Standard French
• Language has had very low prestige, being
  associated with the country and lack of education
• 2008 the States appointed a Language Officer to
  coordinate revitalisation strategy.

4
Who we are
Ki?

• 1 lecturer Dr. Julia Sallabank
• 6 MA students
• targeted at students on the Language
  Documentation and Description course at SOAS
• Coordinated with the Guernsey Language Officer,
  Jan Marquis.

5
Why we were there
Porchi?

• Document
• Create awareness
• Gain Fieldwork experience

6
Documentation

• Interviewed and recorded 77 people
• Usually in the home in groups of 2 or 3
• Some other organized groups
• Participants aged 70-99
• Many volunteered while we were there
• Mostly concentrating on eliciting natural
  conversation

7
Creating Awareness

• Improved status by our interest
• Discussed and encouraged language use with
  participants
• Media coverage
• Local paper
• BBC Guernsey news feature
• Local commercial radio
• BBC Guernsey radio
• Talked to officials
• Sociolinguistic attitude surveys

8
Gaining fieldwork experience

• Used a variety of equipment
• Experienced dealing with people
• Part of the community
• Different from both large scale fieldwork and
  practical aspects of field methods course
• Very intensive - achieved a lot in 2 weeks
• A chance to put theory in to practice in a way
  that benefits the community.

9
What now?

• Volunteered to continue being involved
• Transcribing data
• Giving feedback on project
• Possibility of the opportunity being available
  for future years.

10

• Charles Pigott
• Catherine Jones
• Tracey Carro Noya
• Questions?