Ellen Van Praet ~ Ghent University, Belgium
Writing a Linguistic Ethnography: a different kind of journey
In many respects, a linguistic ethnographer embarks on a “different kind of journey” (Tyler, 1986:140). The vicissitudes of the field force a linguist to step back from the traditionally “one-sided monologism of linguistic science” (Bakhtin, 1973) and replace the epistemological ideal of a neutral view from nowhere by multiple views, each situated somewhere. In a Bakhtinian sense, a linguistic ethnographer commences on a journey which is essentially and inescapably dialogic. Instead of an objectivist interrogation of arbitrarily defined others, he enters into a dialogue with informants and becomes an integral part of the research area. 
Drawing on the experience of writing a linguistic ethnography of weekly meetings in a British embassy, this paper focuses on the linguistic ethnographer’s methodological concern, struggle and attempt to render ‘the dialogue’ and make the reader aware of the often invisible interactive and dynamic process which constitutes ethnography, a process where informants are active and influential, and where a researcher constitutes an integral part of the research area “moving and acting within it, rather than drawn from a transcendent, detached point” (Marcus, 1994:567).
References
Bakhtin, M. (1973) Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics. Michigan: Ann Arbor.
Marcus, G.E. (1994) What comes (just) after ‘Post’? The case of ethnography. In N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds.) Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage. 563-574.
Tyler, S.A. (1986) Postmodern ethnography: From document of the occult to occult document. In J. Clifford and E.G. Marcus (eds.) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press. 122-140.