Fieldwork
Most of my research involves collecting linguistic data in fieldwork contexts with speakers of indigenous languages. These data are quite diverse in nature, and so is the collection process. The methodology that I use during fieldwork sits on three legs, one of which is linguistic elicitation. This means prompting information from a speaker of a language. Elicitation tasks include asking for acceptability judgements of diferent constructions, asking for translations, asking how to say something, and generally any direct question. Good elicitation reduces to a bare minimum the amount of reflection that an informant has to go through to give the linguist a piece of information, and the ideal is for this information to be as raw as possible. Ideally, I do monolingual elicitation as often as I can, meaning that the language used to talk to an informant is the same language that is targeted by the questions.
The second leg of my fieldwork is text collection. In other words, making recordings of spontaneous or semi-spontaneous speech. Collected texts ideally belong to a diverse spectrum of genres, ranging from personal stories or legends to more interactive formats such as conversations or speeches. Once recorded, ideally in high quality video and audio, texts are transcribed, translated, and eventually (and ideally!) annotated morphologically. Once completely processed, this type of data has a great value in providing a picture of a language's grammar in use. As my research has expanded its focus on language documentation and revitalization, the importance of collecting high quality texts has become more and more central to my fieldwork.
Finally, immersive fieldwork would not be productive to its full potential without participant observation. Learning to speak an indigenous language is not only immensely fun and satisfying, but it also opens a window to observing the language as it is used all around you, outside of more or less formal research contexts like when doing elicitation or recording texts. Hearing people speak, and taking part in conversations yourself, is both the best way to improve your fluency and a source of fantastic spontaneous utterances in the language.
Equipment
In this section I keep an up-to-date list of most of my fieldwork gear.
Video
Canon EOS M50 - This is now my main video recorder. Currently with a 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 lens.
Sony HDR-MV1 - A very portable video recorder with good built-in stereo microphones and decent image.
Audio
Zoom H4n - My oldest piece of equipment, this is a classic and very versatile audio recorder.
Yoga HM-20 - A decent headset microphone. I should probably upgrade it for a better one, and it has taken some punishment over the years.
Software
Lightworks - This video editor was advised to me as a substitute for Pinnacle Studio. The learning curve is a little steep at first, but it does work very well. Sometimes I also use iMovie.
Audacity - A classic for audio editing.
Praat - Born at the UvA in the Netherlands, it is the standard for phonetic analysis and speech synthesis.
FLEx - The FieldWorks Language Explorer, developed by SIL, is one of the best database managers for field data. Not released for macOS, unfortunately.
ELAN - A software for time-aligned transcriptions of audio and video recordings. From the MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen.
Arbil - A metadata editor, also from the Nijmegen MPI.
Other
MacBook Pro - A 13-inch model. Both durable and lightweight, it has enough hard drive space and RAM for editing and converting large chunks of heavy media files.
VEO 3T 204ABP - This tripod is extremely sturdy and very lightweight, ideal for using in harsh environments like Amazonia.
Garmin eTrex 22x - A portable GPS for tracking coordinates, and georeferencing in general when in the field.
Equally important for fieldwork life are equipment pieces like a hammock with a mosquito net, a short machete, a coffee grinder, or a good flashlight.
Media misc
I talked about my research and about indigenous Amazonians at the Catalan radio station RAC1 and also at Catalunya Ràdio.
I was interviewed for the Catalan language newspaper Ara.
I was featured in a 2021 news piece on the indigenous languages of the Americas for October 12, together with Elena Benedicto (Purdue) and Francesc Queixalós (CNRS).
A 2021 article on the situation of indigenous languages during this pandemic emergency, featuring the Manoki.
A 2019 news article about the Manoki people, for which I was interviewed.
The radio show Els Viatgers de la Gran Anaconda, on Catalunya Ràdio, interviewed me in 2019. This is the program, and here you can hear me talk about the Panará.