![Abbie Hantgan 1/0
RESEARCH STATEMENT
Abbie Hantgan ah104@soas.ac.uk
I am a field-linguist specialising in description and documentation of under-described lan-
guages spoken in West Africa. My primary interest in linguistics is in phonological analyses
of phonetically transcribed data gathered in naturalistic settings by multilingual speakers.
Background
My career as a linguist began with an interest in African languages through economic de-
velopment trips to Africa. My career took the turn towards linguistics when, at the request
of the Dogon villagers with whom I lived in Mali for two years in Peace Corps, I estab-
lished a literacy program for their women’s gardening collective. I used the only existing
written materials which were from neighbouring village. Although I did not understand
the linguistic differences among dialects at the time, I knew the discrepancies were socially
significant and important to the speakers. I promised the village that I would provide
them with written materials in their own language. This vow motivated my graduate
studies as a linguist. Seven years later, I returned to document their language, but at the
same time, another member of the Dogon and Bangime Linguistics Project died. I spent
a total of 13 months in Mali documenting and analysing language isolate Bangime for my
dissertation[?] and Bondu-so Dogon for my Dogon family[?].
Language Documentation
I believe a language itself should guide the linguist’s interests. For instance, while describ-
ing Malian language isolate Bangime, my primary focus was tone, the most complex aspect
of the language, even though it was the most difficult part of the grammar to capture ac-
curately. Further, because the effects of tone rippled through every part of the grammar,
understanding the entire system was required to represent the tonal system accurately. I
am currently working to publish a grammar of the language by the end of 2016 in conjunc-
tion with Jeffrey Heath, who has conducted subsequent work on Bangime. My research
was described in The New Scientist in 2014[?] and mentioned in the BBC in 2016[?].
Following the political instability in Mali in 2010, I moved my studies for a total of
eight months to neighbouring Burkina Faso. While living in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, I
continued my fieldwork on Bangime and another Dogon language[?]. The ‘discovery’ of the
moribund Gur language, Tiefo, spoken in a nearby village, prompted my documentation
of the language with the remaining five elderly speakers[?].
For each of the languages I have described, I have provided dictionaries in which I pay
close attention to semantic details and which also include flora and fauna terminology. For
those documented during the Dogon and Bangime Linguistics project, all of the specimens
used in the dictionary were gathered by speakers of the languages and myself and then
were identified by a biologist with West African specialisation for accuracy in terminology.
I believe that language documentation should not only be of use to linguists, but also to
other members of the academic and speech communities.
Current Fieldwork
In my current position as a Postdoctoral Researcher at SOAS, I am studying the socio-
phonetic and phonological implications of a highly multilingual setting in Southwestern
Senegal. I am discovering that, at least in the region in which the Crossroads research
project is based, Casamance, egalitarian multilingualism, rather than an all encompassing
lingua franca, is a natural consequence of the culmination of speakers from distinctive back-
grounds’ long-term co-existence in a non-hierarchical social structure. Because the many
languages spoken in the area have not coalesced into a creole, nor has a more widely-spoken
variety from another part of the country encompassed them, the goal of my present re-
search is to determine the points at which languages diverge and converge. Specifically I
am investigating how the pronunciation of diachronically disparate phonemes reflect/index
https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff93799.php](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7b03b812-f3a2-4223-9e3d-91ebcd1f09ab-160616180859/85/ResearchStatement2016-1-320.jpg)
![Abbie Hantgan 2/0
identity (cf. Silverstein (2003)[?] synchronically within the multilingual space. My pub-
lished findings and those in press with my colleagues[?] have the impact to influence studies
on language acquisition as well as expectations and theories concerning sociolinguistic con-
vergent and divergent phenomena.
Theoretical Phonology
I am pursuing a line of inquiry begun by M. Bass`ene[?]: the moraic status of coda con-
sonants in J´oola Eegimaa, one of the languages spoken at the crossroads. Together with
colleagues Serge Sagna and Stuart Davis, we presented our latest analysis at the Manch-
ester Phonology Meeting.
I am intrigued by abstract analyses of auto-segmental processes. While studying
Bondu-so Dogon, a language with a productive process of advanced-tongue root ([ATR])
harmony, I noticed certain roots appeared to be inconsistent in their harmonic patterns
with their affixes. To solve this puzzle, I collaborated with Stuart Davis to propose an
abstract yet elegant analysis with historical and theoretical implications[?].
Data Management
In addition to my own data collection and analysis, a large portion of my time is dedicated
to managing the data for the Crossroads Project. With nine researchers contributing
language data from five different field sites, this can be challenging. Our collective corpus
is contained at The SOAS Languages Archive. Included in the corpus are over 500 sessions
with transcribed and translated Elan and accompanying media files from over 20 languages
and more than 200 participants.
Future Work
I am interested in developing methodologies in fieldwork settings with colleagues and
experts from the relevant sub-fields in linguistics and other disciplines. As laboratory
work and fieldwork in remote settings pursue almost mutually exclusive directions, I plan
to devise ways to forge strong alliances to further the study and collection of natural
language data.
References
[1] Bass`ene, Mamadou. (2012). Morphophonology of Joola Eegimaa. (Unpublished doctoral dis-
sertation). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
[2] Bradley, Matthew Timothy. (May 31, 2014) The Secret Ones. New Scientist 222, no. 2971:
4245. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(14)61070-8.
[3] Cobbinah, Alexander, Hantgan, Abbie, L¨upke, Friederike and Watson, Rachel. Forthcoming.
Carrefour des langues, carrefour des paradigmes. In: Auzeanneau, Michelle, (ed.), Pratiques
plurilingues, mobilit´es et ´education. Paris: ´Edition des Archives Contemporaines.
[3] Hantgan, Abbie. (2013). A grammar of Kindigu´e. Grammars.
http://dogonlanguages.org/grammars.cfm
[4] —– . (2013). Aspects of Bangime Phonology, Morphology, and Morphosyntax (Unpublished
doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
[5] —– . (2013). A Sketch of Ibi-so Morphology. Grammars.
http://dogonlanguages.org/grammars.cfm
[6] —– . Myths and Realities of Language Loss and Change: The Case of Moribund Language Tiefo
(Burkina Faso). Submitted to Africa’s Endangered Languages: Documentary and Theoretical
Approaches. Oxford University Press.
[7] Hantgan, Abbie and Stuart Davis. (2013) Bondu Vowel Harmony: A Descriptive Analysis with
Theoretical Implications Studies in African Linguistics. 41, 2.
[8] Robson, David. (12 February 2016) http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160211-the-secret-
anti-languages-youre-not-supposed-to-know
[9] Silverstein, Michael. (2003) Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life. Language
and Communication. 23, 193–229.
https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff93799.php](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/7b03b812-f3a2-4223-9e3d-91ebcd1f09ab-160616180859/85/ResearchStatement2016-2-320.jpg)
ResearchStatement2016
- 1. Abbie Hantgan 1/0 RESEARCH STATEMENT Abbie Hantgan ah104@soas.ac.uk I am a field-linguist specialising in description and documentation of under-described lan- guages spoken in West Africa. My primary interest in linguistics is in phonological analyses of phonetically transcribed data gathered in naturalistic settings by multilingual speakers. Background My career as a linguist began with an interest in African languages through economic de- velopment trips to Africa. My career took the turn towards linguistics when, at the request of the Dogon villagers with whom I lived in Mali for two years in Peace Corps, I estab- lished a literacy program for their women’s gardening collective. I used the only existing written materials which were from neighbouring village. Although I did not understand the linguistic differences among dialects at the time, I knew the discrepancies were socially significant and important to the speakers. I promised the village that I would provide them with written materials in their own language. This vow motivated my graduate studies as a linguist. Seven years later, I returned to document their language, but at the same time, another member of the Dogon and Bangime Linguistics Project died. I spent a total of 13 months in Mali documenting and analysing language isolate Bangime for my dissertation[?] and Bondu-so Dogon for my Dogon family[?]. Language Documentation I believe a language itself should guide the linguist’s interests. For instance, while describ- ing Malian language isolate Bangime, my primary focus was tone, the most complex aspect of the language, even though it was the most difficult part of the grammar to capture ac- curately. Further, because the effects of tone rippled through every part of the grammar, understanding the entire system was required to represent the tonal system accurately. I am currently working to publish a grammar of the language by the end of 2016 in conjunc- tion with Jeffrey Heath, who has conducted subsequent work on Bangime. My research was described in The New Scientist in 2014[?] and mentioned in the BBC in 2016[?]. Following the political instability in Mali in 2010, I moved my studies for a total of eight months to neighbouring Burkina Faso. While living in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, I continued my fieldwork on Bangime and another Dogon language[?]. The ‘discovery’ of the moribund Gur language, Tiefo, spoken in a nearby village, prompted my documentation of the language with the remaining five elderly speakers[?]. For each of the languages I have described, I have provided dictionaries in which I pay close attention to semantic details and which also include flora and fauna terminology. For those documented during the Dogon and Bangime Linguistics project, all of the specimens used in the dictionary were gathered by speakers of the languages and myself and then were identified by a biologist with West African specialisation for accuracy in terminology. I believe that language documentation should not only be of use to linguists, but also to other members of the academic and speech communities. Current Fieldwork In my current position as a Postdoctoral Researcher at SOAS, I am studying the socio- phonetic and phonological implications of a highly multilingual setting in Southwestern Senegal. I am discovering that, at least in the region in which the Crossroads research project is based, Casamance, egalitarian multilingualism, rather than an all encompassing lingua franca, is a natural consequence of the culmination of speakers from distinctive back- grounds’ long-term co-existence in a non-hierarchical social structure. Because the many languages spoken in the area have not coalesced into a creole, nor has a more widely-spoken variety from another part of the country encompassed them, the goal of my present re- search is to determine the points at which languages diverge and converge. Specifically I am investigating how the pronunciation of diachronically disparate phonemes reflect/index https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff93799.php
- 2. Abbie Hantgan 2/0 identity (cf. Silverstein (2003)[?] synchronically within the multilingual space. My pub- lished findings and those in press with my colleagues[?] have the impact to influence studies on language acquisition as well as expectations and theories concerning sociolinguistic con- vergent and divergent phenomena. Theoretical Phonology I am pursuing a line of inquiry begun by M. Bass`ene[?]: the moraic status of coda con- sonants in J´oola Eegimaa, one of the languages spoken at the crossroads. Together with colleagues Serge Sagna and Stuart Davis, we presented our latest analysis at the Manch- ester Phonology Meeting. I am intrigued by abstract analyses of auto-segmental processes. While studying Bondu-so Dogon, a language with a productive process of advanced-tongue root ([ATR]) harmony, I noticed certain roots appeared to be inconsistent in their harmonic patterns with their affixes. To solve this puzzle, I collaborated with Stuart Davis to propose an abstract yet elegant analysis with historical and theoretical implications[?]. Data Management In addition to my own data collection and analysis, a large portion of my time is dedicated to managing the data for the Crossroads Project. With nine researchers contributing language data from five different field sites, this can be challenging. Our collective corpus is contained at The SOAS Languages Archive. Included in the corpus are over 500 sessions with transcribed and translated Elan and accompanying media files from over 20 languages and more than 200 participants. Future Work I am interested in developing methodologies in fieldwork settings with colleagues and experts from the relevant sub-fields in linguistics and other disciplines. As laboratory work and fieldwork in remote settings pursue almost mutually exclusive directions, I plan to devise ways to forge strong alliances to further the study and collection of natural language data. References [1] Bass`ene, Mamadou. (2012). Morphophonology of Joola Eegimaa. (Unpublished doctoral dis- sertation). University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. [2] Bradley, Matthew Timothy. (May 31, 2014) The Secret Ones. New Scientist 222, no. 2971: 4245. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(14)61070-8. [3] Cobbinah, Alexander, Hantgan, Abbie, L¨upke, Friederike and Watson, Rachel. Forthcoming. Carrefour des langues, carrefour des paradigmes. In: Auzeanneau, Michelle, (ed.), Pratiques plurilingues, mobilit´es et ´education. Paris: ´Edition des Archives Contemporaines. [3] Hantgan, Abbie. (2013). A grammar of Kindigu´e. Grammars. http://dogonlanguages.org/grammars.cfm [4] —– . (2013). Aspects of Bangime Phonology, Morphology, and Morphosyntax (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. [5] —– . (2013). A Sketch of Ibi-so Morphology. Grammars. http://dogonlanguages.org/grammars.cfm [6] —– . Myths and Realities of Language Loss and Change: The Case of Moribund Language Tiefo (Burkina Faso). Submitted to Africa’s Endangered Languages: Documentary and Theoretical Approaches. Oxford University Press. [7] Hantgan, Abbie and Stuart Davis. (2013) Bondu Vowel Harmony: A Descriptive Analysis with Theoretical Implications Studies in African Linguistics. 41, 2. [8] Robson, David. (12 February 2016) http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160211-the-secret- anti-languages-youre-not-supposed-to-know [9] Silverstein, Michael. (2003) Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life. Language and Communication. 23, 193–229. https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff93799.php