Abstract
This paper briefly reviews the first major project in dialect geography, namely Georg Wenker's first attempt at asurvey in 1876. It examines common issues dealt with by modern fieldworkers in preparations for interviews with agroup of carefully selected dialect speak- ers, 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 par- ticipants 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).