Linguistics 210: American Indian Languages
Searching for Books, Chapters and Articles
Basic Reference Sources:
- Ethnologue A good source for statistics about languages, other names for languages, language family information and maps. Be sure to read the introductory material which describes what you find in the language entries!
- Handbook of North American Indians E76.2 H36 Info Commons Ref and Main Ref. Volume 17 of this set is about linguistics. Language information and large bibliographies are found in each of volumes about American Indians. These are arranged by geographic area.
- Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics - 2nd edition online. 1st edition P29 .E48 1994 Main Ref
Background in language and linguistics concepts, information about individual languages with statistics, language family information and sound clips, etc.
Search Strategy Builder
- Get help building your search strategy. The Search Strategy Builder is a tool designed to teach you how to create a search string using Boolean logic. While it is not a database and is not designed to input a search, you should be able to cut and past the results into most databases’ search boxes.
Searching the Online Catalog
- Try Key words to determine the subjects used
- Languages are always used as subjects in this form: Navajo Language; Cherokee Language
- Tribes are always used as subjects in this form: Tohono O'odham Indians; Choctaw Indians
Searching for Articles
- How to identify SCHOLARLY ARTICLES for your paper: Popular vs Scholarly Articles
- Determine what the focus of your topic is. Some topics may be better searched in a database which is not strictly about linguistics and language.
- Anthropology covers music, language, kinship,religion and spirituality and much more.
- Education covers language and cultural preservation and teaching
- Literature covers folklore and oral traditions, drama and cinema
- Work on a topic statement what will help your identify the words that describe your topic. For example: Ritual language in the Navajo culture has helped to keep the language alive.
Search terms might be:
- Ritual or ceremony or ceremonial or religion or religious
- Navajo Indians or Navajo culture or Navajo Language
- Language preservation, endangered language
- Doing preliminary reading in sources like the Handbook of North American Indians and Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics can help you identify key terms.
- Some Databases to use:
- Academic Search Complete: multi-subject
- LLBA: Linguistics and language
- Bibliography of Native North Americans: Many topics about Indians of the US and Canada
- AnthroSource: Linguistic Anthropology, Sociolinguistics, ethnology, folklore
- MLA: Linguistics, literature, folklore, cinema
- ERIC: Language and cultural preservation, teaching languages
- Some of these data bases allow you to limit to peer reviewed or scholarly articles which are the type of articles which you need for your paper.
- Article Linker allows you to search the Library's catalog for journals and then submit an interlibrary loan request if we do not own the journal.
- Some databases contain dissertations, books chapters and other materials. Dissertations are usually not suitable for your paper.
Getting Help
There are lots of places to get help with your research and writing
- Help Desk in the Information Commons: Open from 11am on Sunday until 9pm on Friday. Open Saturday from 9am to 9pm. 621-6442, 621-6443
- Chat: Talk to reference staff online. Same hours as the Information Commons.
- E-Mail Reference Write your question and expect an answer in 48 hours
- The Writing Center: Bear Down Gym, Rooms 102 & 200 (east side), Hours: Mon-Fri: 10am- 5pm, Tues: 10am-8pm. 621-3182
- Last resort: Your subject specialist, Sara Heitshu.
Choosing References and Citing them in Your Paper
References for your paper
- When you are trying to determine whether something will count as a library reference, ask yourself:
- Is this written for a scholarly audience? (Yes = good; No = bad)
- Is it written by someone who is an authority in the field? (Yes = good; No = bad)
- See this web site for more information about scholarly or peer reviewed resources.
- Your textbooks do not count toward your minimum of five library references (though you should definitely use them as resources as you develop your paper).
- Books, chapters in edited volumes, monographs, and journal articles, whether in hard copy or electronic version, are library references.
- Some newspaper articles may be acceptable – check with us if you want to use these.
- Popular magazines (such as ‘People’, ‘Glamour’, or ‘Better Homes and Gardens’) are not acceptable, though some (such as ‘Time’ or ‘National Geographic’) may be ok – check with us if you want to use these.
- You may use the website www.ethnologue.com as one of your library references. If you do, you should cite it as: Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.
- In the text, your citation should be (Gordon, (ed) 2005).
- Stand-alone or instructional websites do not count. You should avoid stand-alone websites in your project, as many of them are unreliable or not aimed at a scholarly audience.
- Personal communication is not a library reference.
- Lecture notes from class are not a library reference.
You may supplement your minimum of 5 library references with some other types of references as appropriate (personal communications, lecture notes, etc) in your paper submission, but you may not use these to count towards your minimum of five library references.
If you cannot find at least 5 library references to support your topic, you should select a different topic. Submit topic changes to the instructor for approval. If you do not know whether a non-library resource is appropriate to use, please talk to your instructors. If you are still in doubt about the appropriate of a resource, do not use it in your paper.
Referencing and Citation Style
You should use the style of the LSA (Linguistic Society of America) to format your references and in-text citations, both for your informal essay and for the final version of your project. You can find the complete style sheet at the URL below, but you only need to follow the instructions for referencing and citation, and for the presentation of language data and examples. http://www.lsadc.org/info/pubs-lang-style.cfm
Reference Page: Here is an example of how a reference page should look. It should be on a separate page, and it should be headed “References”.
References
Hale, Kenneth, and Josie White Eagle. 1980. A preliminary metrical account of Winnebago accent. International Journal of American Linguistics 46.117-32.
Poser, William. 1984. The phonetics and phonology of tone and intonation in Japanese. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.
Rice, Keren. 1989. A grammar of Slave. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Singler, John Victor. 1992. Review of Melanesian English and the Oceanic substrate, by Roger M. Keesing. Language 68.176-82.
Yip, Moira. 1991. Coronals, consonant clusters, and the coda condition. In The special status of coronals: internal and external evidence, ed. by Carole Paradis and Jean-Francois Prunet, 61-78. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Smith, Jane. 1991. A response to Moira Yip. In The special status of coronals: internal and external evidence, ed. by Carole Paradis and Jean-Francois Prunet, 79-85. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
In-Text Citations: Each of these references must correspond to at least 1 in-text citation.
- Here’s how I would format an in-text citation if I learned about this information and paraphrased it from the first article referenced above, and am paraphrasing what I learned (Hale and White Eagle, 1980).
- But if I am “directly quoting that reference I would cite it this way” (Hale and White Eagle, 1980:118).
- You must cite every reference at least once in the text of your paper, and each in-text citation must correspond to a full reference on your reference list.
Avoiding Plagiarism: Understand what it is and don't do it!
Contact Sara Heitshu for more information