Talk:Informant (linguistics)

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Another term?[edit]

I vaguely remember hearing once that the term "informant" was considered politically incorrect, and we were supposed to call them something else now. But I can't remember the new term. Anyone know what it is? +An gr 07:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Consultant" is sometimes used in place of "informant" in North America: Methodological Thoughts from the Linguistic Field (see footnote on p. 22), and a Google search on "linguistic+informant+consultant" also brings up a few interesting hits. MuffledThud (talk) 10:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That was it. You're "supposed to" call them "native-speaker consultants" rather than informants, though I don't see why "informant" should be problematic. Maybe it sounds too much like a stool pigeon? +An gr 10:03, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think you've nailed it. Herb Stahlke from Ball State University thinks that "informant" fell out of vogue in the U.S. just after Watergate[1], which is pretty damn funny if true. :-) MuffledThud (talk) 10:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added it as an alternative term. I don't quite see the point of listing Gradient well-formedness in the See also section, though. +An gr 10:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added that only because it's an interesting problem in which informants are often involved. Feel free to remove it if you think the link is too tenuous. MuffledThud (talk) 10:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a link to well-formedness into the body of the text instead; that redirects to Gradient well-formedness, though it would probably be ultimately better to have an article on well-formedness in general that includes a section on gradient well-formedness, rather than an article specifically on gradient well-formedness with no article on the more general topic. +An gr 11:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]