La raccolta del dato linguistico

This paper briefly reviews the first major project in dialect geography, namely Georg Wenker's first attempt at a survey in 1876. It examines common issues dealt with by modern fieldworkers in preparations for interviews with a group of carefully selected dialect speakers, such as the establishing of socio-psychological factors (age, place of birth, education) which determine linguistic behaviour. It recalls the elicitation techniques, the roles of participants in situated speeches and the preparation of a questionnaire. The theory is mostly based on guidelines provided by the fieldworkers' handbook Costruendo i dati (D'Agostino – Paternostro, 2006) and it has been modified for, and by, various field researches carried out in Corropoli and Nereto (province of Teramo, Abruzzo).