What is a situational elicitation frame?

A situational elicitation frame is a hypothetical situation that is constructed to help you constrain and control what you elicit.

• A frame for eliciting verbs

  To find the vernacular expression for the English word language associate the following story:rescue, you tell a

  “A child was fishing by the river bank. The bank gave way under the child; she fell into the river and was immediately carried into the current, endangering her life. Her father heard her screams for help and ran to his canoe, paddled down to her and pulled her into the canoe.”

  Then you ask the language associate “What happened?” or “What did the father do?”

  The language associate gives you one or more vernacular expressions for “He rescued her.”

• A frame for eliciting expressions

  To find out appropriate vernacular greetings, you ask a language associate the following questions:

  “What would you say to someone (as a greeting) if you met them coming toward you on the road? What about at the market? At the river? At someone else's house? At your house? At their house?”

  The language associate gives you one or more vernacular expressions for greetings.

Context for this page:

• Concept module: situational elicitation frame
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): S
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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