Content area
Abstract
Traditional linguistic fieldwork runs the risk of obscuring what is linguistically relevant to the consultants. I encountered this situation in my fieldwork In Karachi, where Hindko speakers intercepted my requests for word lists and translations with the presentation of long-form texts in the form of songs, a film and a school textbook. This change in genre brought forth by my informants allowed my fieldwork to be reformulated in a way that more directly addressed their concerns, Taking a view of Hindko informed by these texts, a language ideological portrait can be constructed in which Hindko exists in a low but negotiable position in the multilingual language hierarchy. The presentation of these texts are an attempt to negotiate the status of Hindko along three negotiable axes of language development: The historic and geographic claims of a language, the writing system, and the literary traditions of the language.
