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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
in the second sense, the outcome is
knowledge nobody had before
this is the general aim of academic
research.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES

Science and technology

advances in the sciences:
advances in theory development
research methods and approaches occur in
parallel.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

1. RESEARCH: DEFINITION and

EXAMPLES
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.

2. Basic and applied research

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.

2. Basic and applied research

Applied SLA would, for Sharwood Smith,
constitute an answer to the question:
'What does second language research have
to say to language teachers?'

2. Basic and applied research

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.

2. Basic and applied research

3. Yet a third view argues that applied research
develops its own body of knowledge and theorybuilding 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 pretesting 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

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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 (normative) approaches

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.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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'.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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.

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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

Quantitative (normative) approaches

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.