CO5 L&S Research in Sociolinguistics (1) 2LMA 2E 2RE Sem II

LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

SESSION FIVE

RESEARCH IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS (1)

MAIN POINTS

• 1. Research: definition• 2. Basic and applied research• 3. Quantitative (normative) and Qualitative

(interpretive) Research

3.1 Quantitative (normative) approaches

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and EXAMPLES

• McDonough & McDonough (1997)• a crude (and probably ultimately invalid)

distinction between two senses of the word research in the ordinary language:

• in the first sense, the outcome of research is the establishment, publicizing, or utilization of something that somebody already knows.


• in the second sense, the outcome is knowledge nobody had before

• this is the general aim of academic research.


• The word research is used in different fields in one or the other of the senses above, and in some fields in both senses

• Examples:• Fiction• for many novelists, it is essential to prepare for their writing

by researching the background in which they wish to set their narrative for:

• accuracy of description• sensitivity to atmosphere• history of the period in which their fiction takes place

• authenticity of the language.


• Fiction

• research in this field may take many forms, and involve considerable expense in terms of effort, time, and money

• the originality of the novel does not lie in the research but in the artistic creation for which it provides a background


• Journalism• for journalists, especially in investigative

journalism, long periods of time are spent :• researching their stories to uncover facts

and secrets which their editorial policy judges to be in the public interest

• cross-checking what they are told or discover to establish its truth.


• Police work• For the police, there is an obvious parallel

between:• preparing a case against a suspect by

detective work• and research in this first sense: the criminal

they seek has a secret which the police are bound to uncover.


• Business and commerce• in the commercial world, much money is invested in

product development and even sponsorship of basic research

• here one is referring to the second sense as described above

• however, research is also conducted into the people who will buy the products: market research.

• market research is used to establish what can be sold and who will buy it, etc.


• Medical research• in the medical world research is conducted at many levels, it

includes:• methods of assessing diagnoses and treatments,• drug development• Sideeffects• methods of general practice• methods of surgery• epidemiology and common and rare illnesses• this is research in the second sense: to find out things

nobody knew before.


• Science and technology

• advances in the sciences:

• advances in theory development

• research methods and approaches occur in parallel.


• Language teaching• Language teachers also do research in the first sense. They have

to:• scan textbooks and libraries for appropriate examples of the

language and targeted exercises to include in their intended lesson plans

• find materials for conveying the points they wish to make• locate appropriate texts and examples.• check their understanding of grammatical, pragmatic and

cultural descriptions in preparing explanations• find out why students have made certain kinds of mistakes and

why they have behaved in certain ways, and look for remedies.


• To conclude here:• 'research' is used both for the discovery and

publication of concealed knowledge and for the creation of new knowledge.

• there are different kinds of criteria in research which depend on the field

• it is also involved in intervention and manipulation of its sphere of interest;

• and it raises considerable ethical implications both in the process and in the applications

•

2. Basic and applied research

• Basic research is often described as:• research without immediate practical utility,• driven only by the advancement of theory, • applied research involves some kind of

applicability• E.g.: in SLA (second language acquisition):• Sharwood Smith (1994) suggests that there are

two strands of second language acquisition research, a pure and an applied one.


• Pure SLA develops a body of knowledge about second language learners because it is 'interesting as a phenomenon in its own right' (1994: 4)

• It may make reference to, borrow theories and methods from, and expect to influence theoretical developments in a variety of other disciplines, such as linguistics, sociology and cognitive science.


• Applied SLA would, for Sharwood Smith, constitute an answer to the question:

• 'What does second language research have to say to language teachers?'

•


• Applied research may develop along at least three different kinds of path:

• 1. The application of research results and the theory they support to the solution of language teaching problems.

• 2. A second view of applied research suggests that what is applied is not so much the product of existing research but the methodology of obtaining those results.


• 3. Yet a third view argues that applied research develops its own body of knowledge and theory-building for its particular set of problems.

• It is this approach which blurs the distinction between basic or pure research and applied research, for the set of problems which the applied research is designed to help solve do not admit of a more basic approach.

Quantitative (normative) and Qualitative (interpretive) Research

• Despite the many deep differences, both traditions share a number of concerns, but provide different solutions:

• In both, there is a concern for quality of data: • in quantitative research there is concern for pre-

testing the research instruments and tests for validity and reliability

• in qualitative research there is concern for quantity and variety of data types.

Quantitative (normative) and Qualitative (interpretive) Research

• In both, there are procedures for determining what is significant:

• in quantitative research the significance of research results lies in probability

• whereas in qualitative research the significance of results is a question of revealing the universal and generic from comparisons of data sets which are as complete as possible

Quantitative (normative) approaches

• Typically, as Cohen and Manion (1989) point out, they have been associated:

• with large-scale research• 'objective' judgements made by researchers from

the 'outside‘•


• have claimed to isolate facts which are true of more people than the research was actually performed on

• it is usually claimed, at least in experimental designs, that:

• the effects isolated are causal in nature• the eventual goal of such research is to come up

with valid cause-and-effect relations like those sought in the natural sciences


• Quantitative approaches can be characterized by the following:

• A. description by numbers• B. significance in terms of probability• C. use of experimental or quasi-

experimental designs • D. generalization from sample to population• E. the search for causes.


• A. description by numbers• Example:• research into reading proficiency:• tests would probably be used to give a measurement of the

proficiency either as a simple good versus bad judgement or as a score

• one advantage of this would be that such measurements can be counted

• this reflects an important assumption of the normative approach:

• that truth resides in the degree of agreement between many observations.


• HERE 3 May• A. description by numbers• Quantitative research shows that:• it is better to take many measurements of the

same trait from one person• and better to take measurements from many

people • than to use one-off observations.


• A. description by numbers

• Statistics is used in quantitative research to find, e.g.:

• the mean (or average - the figure which best characterizes agreement of all the measurements)

• the (standard) deviation (the degree to which those measurements actually do not agree)

• such procedures can be applied to find the most valid and reliable way of describing all the measurements by using just one or two figures


• A. description by numbers• allows a kind of truth to be revealed• but it may be an abstract truth, one for which no

real example exists.• A (probably mythical) example of this is the

description of the 'average' family in Britain as being constituted by:

• 1.5 adults, 2.4 children and 0.5 dogs.


• A. description by numbers• in the previous example the description:• represents, probably accurately, the fact that not

all nuclear families consist of two adults• that there is a range of offspring numbers from

none to double figures• and about half the families own a dog• but, equally obviously, no family answering that

description will ever be found


• B. Significance in terms of probability• Technically, the 'significance' of a result is the

likelihood that it could have been produced by chance, rather than by some systematic influence.

• In experimental, survey, and correlational designs as used in psychology and psycholinguistics, therefore, the definition of a fact is a matter of likelihood, of distinguishing 'fact' from 'accident'.


• C. Use of experimental and quasi-experimental designs

• quantitative research typically uses designs which attempt to identify independent and dependent variables, e.g.:

• in a study of language learning strategies:• strategies = dependent variable• previous learning experience, language

proficiency level, intelligence, sex = independent variables


• D. The search for generalization from sample to population

• the aim of quantitative research is to:• make generalizations• and find evidence from the particular sample

studied to the population of people at large, e.g.:• from a particular study of language learning

strategies to people in the same kind of learning situation elsewhere in place or time.


• E. The search for cause

• Van Lier (1989) criticizes quantitative approaches for:

• too much focus on the search for causal effects,

• and for the test of the search which is the success of the prediction


• Van Lier (1989) also states that, for example:

• a causal model is irrelevant in research into language teaching because teaching does not entirely cause people to learn anyway.

Documents

CO5 L&S Research in Sociolinguistics (1) 2LMA 2E 2RE Sem II