Linguistics | Sociolinguistics

 Research methods in sociolinguistics

Methodologies for sociolinguistic research

 

Methodology refers to the body of methods of investigation used in sociolinguistics. Methods are usually rule-bound modes of investigation of sociolinguistic research. Sociolinguistic investigations have a twofold concern: 1) they must ask interesting questions and 2) they must find the right kinds of data that bear on those questions.

 

The Observer’s Paradox

Sociolinguists attempt to observe language as a dynamic phenomenon in its natural setting, i.e., the natural unmonitored speech patterns that participants use among themselves.

Speech patterns regularly change when another person (especially a stranger) enters the conversation. Given this sensitivity of speech to audience, how can a sociolinguist, who is a stranger and an outside observer, witness and record natural speech patterns? Doesn’t the presence of the sociolinguist kill or affect the naturalness of the speech? This methodological difficulty is what William Labov labels the Observer’s Paradox: how can we observe people speak when they are not being observed?

The insight of William Labov is that, when an investigator attempts to collect ‘natural’ speech from an informant or group of informants, their presence influences the way in which the informants speak, often leading to hypercorrection on the part of the informants. The ‘paradox’ is that an investigator has to be present to collect speech samples, but their presence affects the samples they are trying to collect. Labov’s rapid and anonymous surveys were an attempt to overcome this problem, as was his practice of trying to turn interview conversations to more lively and personal topics.

 

Methods of inquiry

Sociolinguistics, being an empirical science, is founded on an adequate data base. This data base is drawn from a wide variety of sources. The empirical methods used in data collection can be either quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative methods represent data in the form of numbers and statistics drawn from censuses, documents, and surveys using various elicitation techniques such as questionnaires and interviews. Qualitative methods collect data by directly observing naturally occurring speech events via participant observation or ethnographic methods.

Participant observation is a method used in the social sciences to study the lived practices of a community in a natural environment, i.e., outside a laboratory or experimental context. Participant observation is a form of ethnography which seeks to obtain a greater understanding of a phenomenon through the submersion of the researcher into the lives of their research subjects. It is the practice of spending long periods of time with speakers observing how they use language. It is a means of gathering qualitative data rather than quantitative data. Participant observation is an attempt to overcome the Observer’s Paradox. Researchers spend long periods of time working and/or living with the people whose speech they are interested in, and they hope by doing this they will eventually achieve insider status themselves.

Ethnography is a method of research that evolved out of the field of anthropology. It studies a group from the inside. Ethnography relies on participant observation, which involves researchers immersing themselves with a group in an attempt to gain insight into their choices and behaviour.