Book Review : Research Methods in Linguistics

The ttile of the book is “Research Methods in Linguistics“. The book is edited by Lia

Litosseliti. It has 215 pages with 10 chapters. It is published in 2010 by Continuum

International Publishing Group. Ten chapters on this guide readers through key issues,

principles, and contributions of core methods in linguistic research. The ideas presented by

the ten contributors are currently spread in the literature across different journal and books,

and therefore this collection is aimed as essential up-to-date one-stop resource for researchers

and graduate students.

I personally think that this book has good organization. The book is organized in three

parts, namely Issues, Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, and Qualitative Research

Methods. The division is followed here for easy reference purposes. Each chapter begins with

a chapter outline, and then : introduces the basic concepts and overview key issues, features

illustrative examples from recent linguistic research studies, outlines thod makes to the field,

and where appropriate, its potential for combination with other methods, make suggestions

for further reading in that particular area.

This edited book consisted 10 chapters which are organized into 3 parts. They are (1)

Issues, (2) Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, and (3) Qualitative Research

Methods. The first part covers the issues of Research Questions in linguistics and the issue of

“ Qantitative, Qualitative or Both ? Combining Methods in Linguistics Research. The second

part covers Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, namely Quantitative Methods :

Concepts, Frameworks, and Issues; Organizing and Processing Your Data: The Nuts and

Bolts of Quantitative Analyses; Corpus Methods in Linguistics. The third part of this book

covers the Qualitative Research Methods, namely Discourse Analytic apparoaches to Text

and Talk; Linguistic Etnography; Contemplating Interviews and Focus Groups; Multimodal

Analysis: Key Issues; and Narrative Analysis.

In chapter 1, Jane Sunderland is the contributor. Jane Sunderland is a Senior Lecturer

in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University ( from where

she gained her Ph.D in 1996 ). Jane Sunderland reviews the concept of research questions in

linguistics. She starts the explanation with the reason why we need research questions. She

explores where the research questions might come from, and propose different types of

research questions. She thinks that research questions of course need to be operationalized.

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Jane Sunderland explores the implication of different types of research questions for data,

data collection and analysis.

Jane Sunderlad argues that research questions are the key to any empirical research

project. Without research questions, we will flounder; and with them, we will be guided in

terms of data needed, data collectin methods and data analysis. She states that research

questions come from the process of ‘literature’. It is the process of reading and writing a

literature review the topic. Besides, it comes from the ‘pre-existing topic’ which then drives

the literature review. Also, he states the possible source of a research question, more writing,

questions that we did not ask; hopefully we will be able to ask them.

Jane Sunderland presents the types of research questions. She states that research

questions can be formulated as interrogatives: Do, What, How, Why. Other research questions

might start with Is/Are, When, Where, Who, or To What extent? These interrogatives suggest

different sorts of research question: whereas How, When, Where, What, Is/Are, Do/Does and

To extent may be descriptive. Why is clearly explanatory. In addition to a categorization of

research questions as descriptive, explanatory or and evaluative research. On his writing, she

explains the research questions and linguistic data, operationalizing research questions, the

implications of research questions for data, data collection and analysis. She suggests us to

have documenting our decisions in our article, dissertation or thesis.

In chapter 2, Jo Angouri is the contributor. Joe Angouri is a senior Lecturer at the

University of the West of England, UK. She presents to problemize the widely held

quantitative versus qualitative research dichotomy, and to address the issue of integrating the

two paradigms in research projects in linguistics. She presents the ongoing discussion on the

amount of integration of the quantitative and qualitative elements in research designs. She

also draws on studies that have used a wide range of methodologies and discusses the merits

as well as the challenges in combining paradigms but also methodologies and methods.

Jo Angouri states the benefits of combining the two paradigms have been repeatedly

discussed in the social sciences/humanities research methodology literature. She argues that

combining the two paradigms is beneficial for constructing comprehensive accounts and

providing answers to a wide range of research questions. Besides, she thinks that combining

the two paradigms in sociolinguistics research can shed light on ‘different layers of meaning’.

She states the use of triangulation as a central methodological concepts comes high on the list

of key features of good research designs. She quoted the type of triangulation based on

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Denzin’s ( 1970 ). Those types are : Data Triangulation ( the application of more than one

sampling method for data collection, Investigator Triangulation ( the involvement of more

than one researcher ), Theoritical Triangualtion ( the use of more than one theoretical

stance ), and Methodological Triangulation.

Jo Angouri believes that mixed methods can and do a cross-disciplinary boundaries

and overcome limitations that have been associated with mono-dimensional approaches to the

study of complex phenomena and research sites. Also, she confirms that mixed methods

research can help in making the research relevant to wider audiences, but also in avoiding

orthodoxies. She argues that using a wide range of tools for data collection, and combining

quantitative and qualitative paradigms, can provide rich data sets and enhance our

understanding of complexities in most research areas in linguistics in general.

In chapter 3, Sebastian M. Rasinger is the contributor. Sebastian M. rasinger is a

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Sebastian

presents the most common concepts and issues of quantitative research. He introduces the

discussion of the general characteristic of quantitative research. He also reviews the key

differences between quantitative and qualitative methodology. She also introduces and

defines the concepts of quantitative linguistic variable, hypotheses, theories and laws,

reliability and validity. He also presents his critical evaluation of the most frequently used

research designs in quantitative research, such as, longitudinal, cross-sectional or

experimental designs. Besides, he also looks in some detail at the issues surrounding the use

of questionnaires in quantitative research.

Sebastian M. Rasinger introduces some of the various different approaches to

collecting and analyzing linguistic data, in order to provide a thorough overview of the tools

and methods available. He states few issues in research that fundamentally misunderstood as

the difference betweenqualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis. He argues that

this misperception comes from the use of the terms in daily discourse, where ‘quality’ usually

refers to ‘good’ (unless something is of ‘bad quality’), whereas ‘quantity’ frequently refers to

‘much’.

He also explain the use, design and abuse of panacea questionnaires. He states that

one of the major benefits of questionnaires: we can, potentially, generate a large amount of

data which is comparatively simple to process. While interviews are time-consuming to

conduct and transcribe, and the coding of qualitative data is sometimes difficult,

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questionnaires, with their neat tick-boxes, seem like a blessing. Unfortunately, it is not that

easy. He argues that questionnaires must be perfect before we distribute them: we must be

confident that they work ell and they reliably generate valid data. He states that Questionnaire

design is a complex area and a detailed discussion goes far beyond the scope.She overviews a

common problem, espeacially for student researchers, is the number of questions a

questionnaire should include. He states that questionnaire should include exactly the number

of question it needs to investigate a particular issue validly and reliably—no more, no less.

He gives a few guidelines namely : ask what you need to know, ask comprehensive and

‘objective’ questions, open versus closed questions and multiple item responses.

In chapter 4, the contributor is Erez Levon. Erez Levon is a Lecturer in Linguistics at

Queen Mary, University of London. Erez introduces the basic principles underlying

quantitative research methods. The readers will be introduced with some terms of deductive

reasoning, hypotheses, reliability and validity. He explains how to construct hypotheses for

quantitative investigation and provides to a detailed exposition of two of the common

statistical tests used in linguistics, chi-square and t-tests. He also presents some of ways in

quantitative and qualitative methods can be brought together in linguistics research.

Erez Levon discusses the theoretical concepts underlying quantitative analysis in

somewhat abstract terms. He states the basic schematic structure of quantitative analyses ,

summarized as follows :

We identify the variable of interest ( dependent variable )

We use descriptive statistics to get ideas about potential patterns in the data

These patterns then help us to devise experimental and null hypotheses

We then use inferential statistics to test the null hypotheses

If these inferential statistics return a p-value less than equal to 0.05, then we have

statistical significance and can reject the null hypotheses.

If the p-value is greater than 0.05, then the null hypotheses cannot be rejected

and we are unable to support the claims made by the experimental hypothesis.

He explains in details about chi-square tests, and t-tests.

In chapter 5, Paul Baker is the contributor. Paul Baker was awarded a Ph.D. in

linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and English language at Lancaster University

and is currently a Senior Lecturer. Paul baker presents that are useful how corpus linguistics

techniques can be used to aid a range of linguistics analyses. He defines corpus linguistics

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and describes some of the theoretical concepts surrounding the field. He discusses the

distinction between corpus-based and corpus-drven. He also discusses various principles

that are useful to take into account when building and annotating a corpus. He reviews the

general corpora of British English, the comparisons of word frequencies, a key word analysis,

examinations of collocates and concordances.

He points out some critical considerations. First, corpora can be time-consuming,

expensive and difficult to build, requiring careful decisions to be made regarding sampling

and representatives. There is a continuing need to create up-to-date balanced reference

corpora, especially in languages other than English. Second, researchers who are not

computer literate may initially find it off-putting to have to engage with analytical software or

statistical tests. Although corpus linguistics is often seen as a quantitative form of analysis, in

fact human input is required at almost every stage, from corpus building to corpus analysis.

Third, corpus analysis works best at identifying certain types of patterns for example,

BNCWeb CQP edition allows users to search for patterns such as any adjective followed by

an optional noun, followed by a conjunction occurring somewhere later in the same sentence.

Overall, he confirms that those critics should not be preclude corpus analysis, but should

instead make users aware of potential limitations, giving them information about when

corpora should be used alone, when they could be combined with other methodological

approaches and when they might be best avoided.

In chapter 6, Judith Baxter is the contributor. Judit Baxter is a Senior lecturer in

Applied Linguistics at Aston University. She gained her Ph.D. Language, Gender and

Education at the University of Reading in 2000. She explores the different ways in which

discourse-analytic approaches reveal to the “meaningfulness” of text and talk. She reviews

four diverse approaches to discourse analysis of particular value for current research in

linguistics : Conversation Analysis ( CA ), Discourse Analysis ( DA ), Critical Discourse

Analysis ( CDA ) and Feminist Post-Structuralist Discourse Analysis ( FPDA ).

He explores four approaches to analyzing discourse that are of particular value to the

field of linguistics. First, CA is a micro analytical approach which offers a theoretical

framework, a terminology and systematic modus operandi for analyzing spoken discourse in

particular. Secondly, she points that DA offers linguists a bridge between micro and macro

analytical approaches in its key concept of the ‘interpretative’ or ‘linguistic repertoire’.

Thirdly, CDA has always refuted that it is, in fact, a discourse-analytic approach. Finally,

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FPDA aims to demonstrate that the notion of a contradiction between micro- and

microanalysis is irrelevant.

In chapter 7, Angela Creese is the contributor. Angle Creese is Professor of

Educational Linguistics at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK. She

describes linguistic ethnography and its methodological and analytical contribution to the

study of language and social life. She presents examples of its eclectic stance of combining

different traditions of discourse analysis with ethnography and debates the opportunities and

drawbacks of disciplinary and theoretical diversity. She describes two key issues in

linguistics ethnography. The first relates to interdiciplinarity and the second to the challenges

linguistic ethnography faces in the post modern era.

Angela Creese presents linguistic ethnography and interaction, questions and key

issues in linguistic ethnography, ethnography and post-structutalism, and the application of

methods. He believes that linguistic ethnography offers a new perspective relevant to

researchers working in the social sciences in post-modernity. Besides, it it offers a greater set

of resources than each field of study could offer on its own.

In chapter 8, Nigel Edley and Lia Litosseliti are the contributors. Nigel Edley is a

Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. Lia Litosseliti is a

senior Lecturer in Linguistics at City University, London, with a Ph.D.in Linguistics from

Lancaster University. They present the use of both interviews and focus groups within social

science and linguistics research. They recommend that interviews and focus group as treated

as collaborative or interactional events in which the interviewer or moderator plays an

important, participative role.

Nigel Edley discusses the logic of the research interview or focus group, recent

challenges, in defense of interviews and focus groups. Nigel points one of the great

advantages of interviews and focus groups is their tremendous flexibility. On the one hand,

they can be used as the primary source of data.

In chapter 9, Jeff Bazemer and Carey Jewitt are the contributors. Jeff Bazemer is a

Research Officer at the Centre for Multimodal Research, Institute of Education, University of

London. Carey Jewitt is a Reader in Education and Technology at the London Knowledge

Lab, Institute of Education ( IoE ), University of London. They discuss multimodal

approaches to the study of linguistics, and of representation and communication more

generally. They draw attention to the range of different modes that people use to make

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meaning betond language—such as speech, gesture, gaze, image and writing. They conclude

with a discussion of the potentials and constraints of multimodal analysis.

They explain the social linguistic approaches to multimodality, a social semiotic

approach to multimodality, collecting and analyzing multimodal data, a social semiotic study

of classroom interaction, a social semiotic study of learning resources, the potentials and

limitations of multimodal research.

In chapter 10, Julio C. Gimenez is the contributor. He is a lecturer at the Centre of

English Language Education, University of Nottingham, where he teaches academic literacies

to graduate and post graduate students. He introduces the key elements of traditional and new

emerging sociolinguistic approaches to the analysis of narratives, focusing specifically on

narrative networks. He reviews the main definitions of narratives and illustrates traditional

analytical perspectives, namely the componential and functional analyses.

He reviews an overview of the study of narrative. Narrative is often used

interchangeably with ‘story’, ‘life story’, ‘account’, ‘discourse’, ‘narration’, and ‘tale’ with

little or no difference. He states some definitions from some experts. First, Labov and

Waletzky ( 1967 ) that defines ‘ any sequence of clauses which contains at least one temporal

juncture’. Second, Linde ( 1993 ) defines a more sociolinguistic definition of narrative. Third,

Lieblich et.al ( 1998 ) defines narratives as stories which are usually constructed around a

core of facts or life events, yet allow a wide periphery for the freedom of individually and

creativity in selection, addition to, emphasis on, the interpretation of these remembered facts.

Fourth, Webster and Mertova states that narrative records human experience through the

construction and reconstruction of personal stories.

I think his discussion on this book is very good. He present the discussion of

designing narrative networks, putting theory to practice. He states four major stages in the

construction and analysis of narrative networks: data collection, analysis, interpretation and

explanation. He concludes that the analysis of narratives, even when appropriately located in

the context of production, hs tended to examine narratives as isolated discursive realizations,

failing to make a link between the local, sometimes personal, issues and the broader

sociolinguistic context.

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