RESEARCHING ABOUT LANGUAGE

THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECTS

INICIACIÓN A LA LINGÜÍSTICA INGLESA

2nd TERM

THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

THE STAGES OF RESEARCH

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE

RESEARCH

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

1. Select a topic

2. Give reasons for the choice

3. Decide type of research

4. Specify main objectives

5. Outline methodology

6. Look for data and collect a corpus of examples

7. Look for sources of information and study them

8. Formulate hypotheses and classify them

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

1. Selecting a topic

‘Doability’

2. Justifying the choice (reasons)

Motivation

(Personal) Interest

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

3. Deciding type of research Theoretical vs Applied (‘practical’)

Single structure/unit vs Comparison of structures/units

Monolingual vs Contrastive

4. Specifying main objectives

5. Outlining methodology

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

6. Looking for data and collecting a corpus

of examples

A corpus must be: homogeneous representative comprehensive

• geographical variety (‘dialect’)• temporal variety (‘syncrony’)• medium• register

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

(ELECTRONIC) CORPORA

British National Corpus: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/

Corpus Concordance English:

http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html

Mark Davies – BNC: http://corpus.byu.edu

The Collins Cobuild Concordance and Collocations Sampler:

http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx

WebCorp: http://www.webcorp.org.uk

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

INTERNATIONAL CORPUS OF ENGLISH (ICE) TEXT CATEGORIES

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

7. Gathering (reference) information Dictionaries

Literature about morphosyntactic structure of English Books Journals

Native informants / Questionnaires

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

8. Formulating and classifying hypotheses

Questions leading to hypotheses: What sort of linguistic element are we going to describe?

At what level of description should we classify the linguistic

phenomenon under study?

What do we know about its form?

What do we know about its distribution?

What do we know about its function?

What do we know about its meaning?

Formulating and classifying hypotheses

What sort of linguistic element are we

going to describe? Grammatical category: Tense, Number, Comparison

Morpheme: dis-, -un, -er

Word (as ‘class’ / as single ‘lexical item’): Preposition, Noun;

accident

Phrase: Adjective Phrase, Verb Phrase; the concept of ‘Phrase’

Functional element: Subject, Modifier, Complement

Clause / Sentence: Relative Clauses, Conditional Clauses,

Compound Sentences

Formulating and classifying hypotheses

At what level of description should we classify the linguistic

phenomenon under study?

Inflections: morphemic and word levels

Adverbial clauses: clause and sentence levels

Passive voice: Clause level: active vs passive clauses; intensive vs passive; syntactic

constituents of passives

Phrase level: the passive verb phrase; restrinctions in terms of modifications;

passive VPs and –ed Adjective Phrases

Lexical level: Verbs accepting/rejecting passive voice

Word/Morphemic level: the passive ‘morpheme’; passive auxiliaries

Etc.

Formulating and classifying hypotheses

What do we know about its form? Morphemes (Derivational / Inflectional):

Spelling Pronunciation

Words: Spelling / Pronunciation Stress Structure: simple/complex/compound Inflections Word-formation potential

Phrases: Formal realization of constituents

Clauses: Formal character: Tensed vs Non-tensed clauses (Finite / Non-Finite) Formal realization of constituents Presence/Absence of subordinators Relationships between verb forms in main and subordinate clause

Formulating and classifying hypotheses

What do we know about its distribution? Which (other) elements are affected

How do they tend to co-occur?

What restrictions apply?

Formulating and classifying hypotheses

What do we know about its function?

What do we know about its meaning?

What the element ‘does’ both syntactically and semantically:

communicative force

Morphemic level: number, past

Clause: Passive vs active, coordination vs. subordination

THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

THE STAGES OF RESEARCH

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE

RESEARCH

CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH

1.Identification and isolation of the corpus

2.Analysis and study of the corpus

3.Description and classification of results

Identification and isolation of the corpus

Marginalexamples

Identification and isolation of the corpus

THE VERB PLAY

1.  They needed loving. Robots can sing and PLAY games, but they can't love. Only the Sta

2.  to entertainment, radio and TV can also PLAY a vital role in advancing the aims of ed

3. g without batteries. It can retrieve and PLAY audio from a CD-ROM in addition to text 

4. story and writing and reading. I wrote a PLAY and directed it on our garden lawn. I

5. AMLET: Follow him, friends. We'll hear a PLAY tomorrow. (Aside to the PLAYER, who is t

6.  be planted along roads and in parks and PLAY facilities for children should be create

7. Car Park. Skittle Alley. Beer Garden and PLAY Area. Room available for all types of fu

8. ic Development Committee hasn't always PLAYED the game, you never know wh

9. watched the television of an evening. PLAYED games and records and telephoned people,

10. probably the most PLAYED classical music in the world

11. This attractive and well-PLAYED recital is given on an Erard piano made

12. r does the loud ovation after a well-PLAYED, but not very insightful account of the

Identification and isolation of the corpus

INTENSIVE CLAUSESHe was silly.His eyes appeared enormous.He went mad.She had run naked.The book appeared publishedHe went there.He was worried.He appears in chains.The women were marched naked.He went fast.

CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH

2. Analysis and study of the corpus

Begin with a small number of examples

Analyse and classify them in relation to all

hypotheses

Outline preliminary conclusions

Include new examples (if necessary)

Analysis and study of the corpus

Analysis and classification of examples in relation to all hypotheses

ITEMExample of the item 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................

Analysis and study of the corpus

ITEM : ACCIDENTExample: Accidents, however, usually take us by surprise. 1. FORM (1a) It is a complex word, formed with a base and a derivational suffix: False: *Accid + ent(1b) It shows number contrast : True

‘Accidents usually take us by surprise’ ‘An accident usually takes us by surprise’. 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) It can take all type of determiners: (Partly) true:

The/These/His/Some/Many/No/All/Ø accidents usually take us by surpriseAn/The/This/His accident usually takes us by surprise.

 But: *Much accident(s); Ø/All accident

3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) etc.

Description and classification of results

From Examples (Data) to Hypotheses (Description/Theory) The description should follow the order of the analysis.

ITEMExample 1 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................

ITEMExample 2 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................

ITEMExample 3 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................

HYPOTHESES ABOUT ITEM 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................

THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

THE STAGES OF RESEARCH

PLANNING THE RESEARCH

CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE

RESEARCH

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

How does the item under study behave as regards form/distribution/function/meaning, according to examples examined?

The question of ‘frequency’.

How can we define the item?

Are there aspects which are still difficult to describe or explain and which deserve further investigation?

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

RECONSIDERING HYPOTHESES

How far do our conclusions match initial hypotheses: completely/partially/at all?

Can we explain the differences?  Were our hypotheses wrong? - Is our corpus of examples too small to reflect real

use? - Are we using a representative corpus?