A Pictorial Linguistic Interview Manual (PLIM)

Author : Stanley Martin Sapon

Publication date : 1957

Questionnaire URL : https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015082130553;view=1up;seq=1

Bibliographical references :

Sapon, Stanley M. 1957. A pictorial linguistic interview manual. (American Library of Recorded Dialect Studies.) Columbus: Ohio State University.

Goals

''This manual attempts to make a contribution to the solution of several problems in the area of descriptive linguistic field-work, namely, those problems arising out of the need for accepted standards for the gathering, recording and reporting of linguistic data collected in the field." (Sapon, 1957:1)

Protocol summary

'' Part I consists of 135 simple line drawings (...) of objects familiar in rural and urban contexts. (...) The linguistic yield of this section of the manual, in addition to lexical information, provides a body of phonologically useful data. (...)
Part II contains twelve line drawings of domestic and farm animals (...) Responses here are on the level of the connected, sentence-length utterance and offer some information on the morphological and syntactic level.
Part III contains a series of pictures that seeks to provoke speech of a spontaneous nature. (...)
The average time for administration of PLIM is twenty minutes.'' (Sapon, 1957:3)

Development context

"''This manual attempts to make a contribution to the solution of several problems in the area of descriptive linguistic field-work, namely, those problems arising out of the need for accepted standards for the gathering, recording and reporting of linguistic data collected in the field.

Evidence that these poblems were more than a personal concern was given in New York City at the 1954 Annual Meetings of the Modern Language Association, where the author chaired a conference of Scholars held for the purpose of reviewing the current situation.

The purpose of the Conference: One of the basic notions of scientific research is that of the need for replicability of observation and experiment." (Sapon, 1957:1)

" The material presented here is a revised and expanded form of a set of interview materials designed and used by the writer for eliciting in a study of socio-economic variables in Mexico City phonology.'' (Sapon, 1957:3)