Research Methods in Linguistics

Michaelmas Term 2011

Conducting linguistic research

Anastassia Loukina 1 What is a bad research question?

Identify the problems with the following research questions: 1. Nouns in the Zulu language.

2. Was there any dierence in duration of stop consonants between Attic and Ionian Greek?

3. Do complex sentences take longer to process than simple ones?

4. Metalinguistic awareness in bilingual children.

5. What is the relative use of Welsh and English in Welsh nurseries?

6. Are there gender-specic dierences in use of Latin expressions in Middle English?

7. What is the structure of the mental lexicon?

8. How does the individual vowel quality changes between the age of 20 and 45?

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Research Methods in Linguistics Michaelmas Term 2011

Conducting linguistic research Due: Friday, 14 October, 10 am

Types of data

Think about three advantages and three disadvantages of the following types of data: Type of data Advantages 1. 2. 3. 1. Collecting a new corpus 2. 3. 1. Experiment 2. 3. 1. Questionnaire/survey 2. 3. 1. Observations 2. 3. Disadvantages 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3.

Existing corpora

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Research Methods in Linguistics Michaelmas Term 2011

Conducting linguistic research Due: Friday, 14 October, 10 am

Matching the type of data to the research question

What data would be most suitable for the following studies? (The studies have actually been done and published, but I suggest you think of the answer yourself. The references are given FYI only.) 1. Are there similarities in acoustic spectra between major and minor music on one hand and excited and subdued speech on the other? (Bowling et al., 2010) 2. Are there dierences in decision times (lexical judgement task) for regular and irregular verbs between L1 and L2 speakers? (Clahsen et al., 2010) 3. What is the distribution of Old English nominal terms of address across dierent texts and communicative setting? (Kohnen, 2008) 4. What is the eect of attitude toward the local community on variation in pronunciation of /l/ and /n/ in rural Modern Greek? (Pappas, 2008) 5. How do Gelada monkeys use rhythm and melody in their vocal exchanges? (Richman, 1987)

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References Bowling, D. L., Gill, K., Choi, J. D., Prinz, J., and Purves, D. (2010). Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 127(1):491503. Clahsen, H., Felser, C., Neubauer, K., and Silva, R. (2010). Morphological Structure in Native and Nonnative Language Processing. Language Learning, 60(1):2143. Kohnen, T. (2008). Linguistic politeness in Anglo-Saxon England?: A study of Old English address terms. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 9(1):140158. Pappas, P. a. (2008). Stereotypes, variation and change: Understanding the change of coronal sonorants in a rural variety of Modern Greek. Language Variation and Change, 20(03):493. Richman, B. (1987). Rhythm and Melody in Gelada Vocal Exchanges. Primates, 28(April):199223.

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