Methodology
COSER methodology has involved semi-directed interviews developed by
sociolinguistics, always channelled by the interviewers towards certain topics
of traditional life in the countryside. Although the interview focuses on these
topics, this does not stop the conversation shifting to other topics once the
interviewer has gained the informant’s trust. Other topics covered include
education, desires, personal experiences, life itself or the family, depending on
the degree of comfort and spontaneity shown by the informant. The decision
to focus the interview on topics related to rural life "in the past" has much to
do with the fact that, in order to agree to the interview, the potential informant
has to recognise that he or she has knowledge to offer about a system of life
that is in decay. They must understand that knowledge is the product of
personal experience and age and that confers informative "authority" over the
urban interviewer. The informant accepts the interview because he
understands our interest in what they have to say about a system of life in
decline: a lifestyle that few people remember and about which he/she is an
expert. We believe that it would be much more difficult to secure volunteer
informants if they were asked to relate personal opinions or experiences, or
indeed any issues not related to rural life, from the start. In fact, informants
have often mentioned the university status of the interviewers to evade the
interview, claiming “you know everything better than we do!” The survey
team’s insistence on the precise interest of the strictly local tradition, in
contrast to that of other rural localities, and on the informant’s unique status as
a source of information of that tradition, has often been a determining factor in
the informant's decision to take part in an interview.
Contact with informants is always made at random, without prior
arrangement, among local individuals who meet the aforementioned
requirements. The fact that some interviews were not useable due to the
informant's poor informative capacity (people who speak little, answer in very
short sentences or monosyllables) led to the subsequent addition of the
condition of loquacity ("one who likes to talk") to the informant selection
protocol. Anyone who has carried out fieldwork can tell you that success is
never guaranteed, and an interview can be good or bad with the same starting
conditions. Thus, not all interviews are equally suitable or informative,
depending on the disposition of the informant, the interviewer’s skill and the
interaction between the two, but we do not believe that any testimony should
be disregarded.
Regarding the number of informants in each locality, COSER has generally
preferred to interview only one person (either male or female) in depth.
However, the conditions of the recording sometimes make it impossible to
avoid interruptions from other individuals (usually family members or
acquaintances who, interested in the interview taking place, are tempted to intervene and give their own testimony). Thus, although up to 2,910
informants are registered in COSER, most of the time only one informant per
locality has been interviewed in the desired depth.
Initially, the interview protocol was designed with the aim of documenting
certain linguistic phenomena (specifically, the use of unstressed pronouns),
but it soon became clear that information was always obtained on many other
aspects apart from the expected ones. As a result, the development of the
conversation has sought to create contexts which would favour the appearance
of dialectal data of all kinds, some of which have been mentioned in the
specialised bibliography, as well as others which have scarcely attracted
attention. In this regard, it should be noted that the COSER interviews have
proved particularly useful for documenting dialectal phenomena relating to
grammar, an aspect traditionally under-represented in dialect monographs and
in the questionnaires of linguistic atlases.
The selection of the localities has followed various criteria over time: initially,
in 1990-1993, the aim was to delimit the isogloss of the referential system of
unstressed third person pronouns ("Pronombres 90", "Pronombres 91 Primavera", "Pronombres 91 Verano", “Pronombres 92 Primavera”, "Pronombres Julio 92", "Pronombres Marzo 93", "Pronombres Julio 93" campaigns). Later, in 1994 and 1995, the coverage of the inland area framed by this isogloss was addressed ("Castellano 94", "Castellano 95" and "Castellano 95 Primavera"). Since 1996, survey campaigns have continued in other areas, generally focusing on a provincial, island or regional demarcation ("Navarra 96", "La Rioja 97", "La Mancha-Castellano 98", "Castellano 99", "País Vasco 2000", "Teruel 2001", "Jaén 2002”, "Cuenca 2003", "León 2004", "Asturias 2005", "Extremadura 2006", "Huesca 2007", "Zaragoza 2008", "Albacete 2009", "Badajoz 2010", "Córdoba 2011", "Huelva 2012", "Andalusia 2012" [Cadiz, Sevilla and part of Malaga], "Andalusía 2013" [Malaga, Granada and Almeria], "Oriente 2013" (Castellón, Valencia, Alicante and Murcia], "Lérida 2014", "Asturias 2014", "País Vasco 2015", "Salamanca 2015", "Tenerife 2016", "Oriente 2016", "Gran Canaria 2017", "Mallorca 2017", "Galicia 2017", "Fuerteventura-Lanzarote 2018", "Cataluña 2018", "La Gomera 2018", "La Palma 2019", "Zamora-Salamanca 2019", "El Hierro 2019" and "Gerona 2021" campaigns).
The average duration of the recordings is one hour and five minutes per locality but can range from only half an hour to more than two and a half hours. The quality of the recordings is not directly proportional to the duration, as there are excellent and very informative recordings that are only half an hour long, the results of which are comparable to those obtained in a longer session.
Since 2010, some recordings have been made in both audio and video, a practice that has become widespread since "Andalusia 2012".
