This course is required for all MA students doing sociolinguistics. It aims to give you a foundation in some of the primary methods often used in sociolinguistic research. We draw on a variety of methods & traditions, including quantitative and qualitative approaches, as well as those used in dialectology, variation, ethnography of speech, discourse & conversation analysis. The history of sociolinguistics is largely the development & refinement of an empirical method. We therefore draw on both classic & updated techniques, considering different ways to collect data & begin linguistic analysis.
This is a course about doing -- learning how to perform basic research tasks. It differs from other courses in that we will not so much survey an existing body of knowledge, as learn how to discover & create new knowledge. Readings are more often practical & technical than theoretical or investigative. It also differs from many modules in that the methods studied here do not belong to a particular sub-discipline, but can be applied to various existing, new or combined approaches.
Our survey plans to cover:
* Ethnographic observation and note-taking
* Methods of sampling populations of speakers
* How to approach informants
* The design and use of simple questionnaires
* The central role of sociolinguistic interviews...
* ...and of participant-observation techniques
* Problems in eliciting and recording natural speech
* Approaches to record-keeping and their consequences, and
* The ethics of (socio-)linguistic research (esp. responsibilities to the speakers & communities we study)
This is a course about doing -- learning how to perform basic research tasks. It differs from other courses in that we will not so much survey an existing body of knowledge, as learn how to discover & create new knowledge. Readings are more often practical & technical than theoretical or investigative. It also differs from many modules in that the methods studied here do not belong to a particular sub-discipline, but can be applied to various existing, new or combined approaches.
Our survey plans to cover:
* Ethnographic observation and note-taking
* Methods of sampling populations of speakers
* How to approach informants
* The design and use of simple questionnaires
* The central role of sociolinguistic interviews...
* ...and of participant-observation techniques
* Problems in eliciting and recording natural speech
* Approaches to record-keeping and their consequences, and
* The ethics of (socio-)linguistic research (esp. responsibilities to the speakers & communities we study)