Broad scope and coverage from four points of view: the geographical, the historical, the philosophical and the encyclopedic.

Includes detailed discussions of the theoretical, practical and ethical issues involved in language selection, data collection, data management.

A survey of past and present approaches and solutions to problems in the field, and the historical, political, and social variables correlating with fieldwork in different areas of the world.

This handbook provides the most comprehensive reference on linguistic fieldwork on the market bringing together all the reader needs to carry out successful linguistic fieldwork. The book is based on the experiences of two veteran linguistic fieldworkers and advice from more than twenty active fieldwork researchers. They provide an encyclopedic review of current publications on linguistic fieldwork and offer a unique survey of past and present approaches and solutions to problems in the field. They also examine the historical, political, and social variables correlating with fieldwork in different areas of the world. The book includes information omitted in most other texts on the subject, such as the collection, representation, management, and methods of extracting grammatical information from discourse and conversational data. Extensive practical fieldwork tips are provided, as well as a handy sketch of major typological features for use in linguistic analysis.