1

Book Review : Research Methods in Linguistics

The ttile of the book is Research Methods in Linguistics. The book is edited by Lia
Litosseliti. It has 215 pages with 10 chapters. It is published in 2010 by Continuum
International Publishing Group. Ten chapters on this guide readers through key issues,
principles, and contributions of core methods in linguistic research. The ideas presented by
the ten contributors are currently spread in the literature across different journal and books,
and therefore this collection is aimed as essential up-to-date one-stop resource for researchers
and graduate students.
I personally think that this book has good organization. The book is organized in three
parts, namely Issues, Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, and Qualitative Research
Methods. The division is followed here for easy reference purposes. Each chapter begins with
a chapter outline, and then : introduces the basic concepts and overview key issues, features
illustrative examples from recent linguistic research studies, outlines thod makes to the field,
and where appropriate, its potential for combination with other methods, make suggestions
for further reading in that particular area.
This edited book consisted 10 chapters which are organized into 3 parts. They are (1)
Issues, (2) Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, and (3) Qualitative Research
Methods. The first part covers the issues of Research Questions in linguistics and the issue of
Qantitative, Qualitative or Both ? Combining Methods in Linguistics Research. The second
part covers Quantitative and Corpus Research Methods, namely Quantitative Methods :
Concepts, Frameworks, and Issues; Organizing and Processing Your Data: The Nuts and
Bolts of Quantitative Analyses; Corpus Methods in Linguistics. The third part of this book
covers the Qualitative Research Methods, namely Discourse Analytic apparoaches to Text
and Talk; Linguistic Etnography; Contemplating Interviews and Focus Groups; Multimodal
Analysis: Key Issues; and Narrative Analysis.
In chapter 1, Jane Sunderland is the contributor. Jane Sunderland is a Senior Lecturer
in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University ( from where
she gained her Ph.D in 1996 ). Jane Sunderland reviews the concept of research questions in
linguistics. She starts the explanation with the reason why we need research questions. She
explores where the research questions might come from, and propose different types of
research questions. She thinks that research questions of course need to be operationalized.
2

Jane Sunderland explores the implication of different types of research questions for data,
data collection and analysis.
Jane Sunderlad argues that research questions are the key to any empirical research
project. Without research questions, we will flounder; and with them, we will be guided in
terms of data needed, data collectin methods and data analysis. She states that research
questions come from the process of literature. It is the process of reading and writing a
literature review the topic. Besides, it comes from the pre-existing topic which then drives
the literature review. Also, he states the possible source of a research question, more writing,
questions that we did not ask; hopefully we will be able to ask them.
Jane Sunderland presents the types of research questions. She states that research
questions can be formulated as interrogatives: Do, What, How, Why. Other research questions
might start with Is/Are, When, Where, Who, or To What extent? These interrogatives suggest
different sorts of research question: whereas How, When, Where, What, Is/Are, Do/Does and
To extent may be descriptive. Why is clearly explanatory. In addition to a categorization of
research questions as descriptive, explanatory or and evaluative research. On his writing, she
explains the research questions and linguistic data, operationalizing research questions, the
implications of research questions for data, data collection and analysis. She suggests us to
have documenting our decisions in our article, dissertation or thesis.
In chapter 2, Jo Angouri is the contributor. Joe Angouri is a senior Lecturer at the
University of the West of England, UK. She presents to problemize the widely held
quantitative versus qualitative research dichotomy, and to address the issue of integrating the
two paradigms in research projects in linguistics. She presents the ongoing discussion on the
amount of integration of the quantitative and qualitative elements in research designs. She
also draws on studies that have used a wide range of methodologies and discusses the merits
as well as the challenges in combining paradigms but also methodologies and methods.
Jo Angouri states the benefits of combining the two paradigms have been repeatedly
discussed in the social sciences/humanities research methodology literature. She argues that
combining the two paradigms is beneficial for constructing comprehensive accounts and
providing answers to a wide range of research questions. Besides, she thinks that combining
the two paradigms in sociolinguistics research can shed light on different layers of meaning.
She states the use of triangulation as a central methodological concepts comes high on the list
of key features of good research designs. She quoted the type of triangulation based on
3

Denzins ( 1970 ). Those types are : Data Triangulation ( the application of more than one
sampling method for data collection, Investigator Triangulation ( the involvement of more
than one researcher ), Theoritical Triangualtion ( the use of more than one theoretical stance
), and Methodological Triangulation.
Jo Angouri believes that mixed methods can and do a cross-disciplinary boundaries
and overcome limitations that have been associated with mono-dimensional approaches to the
study of complex phenomena and research sites. Also, she confirms that mixed methods
research can help in making the research relevant to wider audiences, but also in avoiding
orthodoxies. She argues that using a wide range of tools for data collection, and combining
quantitative and qualitative paradigms, can provide rich data sets and enhance our
understanding of complexities in most research areas in linguistics in general.
In chapter 3, Sebastian M. Rasinger is the contributor. Sebastian M. rasinger is a
Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Sebastian
presents the most common concepts and issues of quantitative research. He introduces the
discussion of the general characteristic of quantitative research. He also reviews the key
differences between quantitative and qualitative methodology. She also introduces and
defines the concepts of quantitative linguistic variable, hypotheses, theories and laws,
reliability and validity. He also presents his critical evaluation of the most frequently used
research designs in quantitative research, such as, longitudinal, cross-sectional or
experimental designs. Besides, he also looks in some detail at the issues surrounding the use
of questionnaires in quantitative research.
Sebastian M. Rasinger introduces some of the various different approaches to
collecting and analyzing linguistic data, in order to provide a thorough overview of the tools
and methods available. He states few issues in research that fundamentally misunderstood as
the difference betweenqualitative and quantitative approaches to data analysis. He argues that
this misperception comes from the use of the terms in daily discourse, where quality usually
refers to good (unless something is of bad quality), whereas quantity frequently refers to
much.
He also explain the use, design and abuse of panacea questionnaires. He states that
one of the major benefits of questionnaires: we can, potentially, generate a large amount of
data which is comparatively simple to process. While interviews are time-consuming to
conduct and transcribe, and the coding of qualitative data is sometimes difficult,
4

questionnaires, with their neat tick-boxes, seem like a blessing. Unfortunately, it is not that
easy. He argues that questionnaires must be perfect before we distribute them: we must be
confident that they work ell and they reliably generate valid data. He states that Questionnaire
design is a complex area and a detailed discussion goes far beyond the scope.She overviews a
common problem, espeacially for student researchers, is the number of questions a
questionnaire should include. He states that questionnaire should include exactly the number
of question it needs to investigate a particular issue validly and reliablyno more, no less.
He gives a few guidelines namely : ask what you need to know, ask comprehensive and
objective questions, open versus closed questions and multiple item responses.
In chapter 4, the contributor is Erez Levon. Erez Levon is a Lecturer in Linguistics at
Queen Mary, University of London. Erez introduces the basic principles underlying
quantitative research methods. The readers will be introduced with some terms of deductive
reasoning, hypotheses, reliability and validity. He explains how to construct hypotheses for
quantitative investigation and provides to a detailed exposition of two of the common
statistical tests used in linguistics, chi-square and t-tests. He also presents some of ways in
quantitative and qualitative methods can be brought together in linguistics research.
Erez Levon discusses the theoretical concepts underlying quantitative analysis in
somewhat abstract terms. He states the basic schematic structure of quantitative analyses ,
summarized as follows :
We identify the variable of interest ( dependent variable )
We use descriptive statistics to get ideas about potential patterns in the data
These patterns then help us to devise experimental and null hypotheses
We then use inferential statistics to test the null hypotheses
If these inferential statistics return a p-value less than equal to 0.05, then we have
statistical significance and can reject the null hypotheses.
If the p-value is greater than 0.05, then the null hypotheses cannot be rejected
and we are unable to support the claims made by the experimental hypothesis.
He explains in details about chi-square tests, and t-tests.
In chapter 5, Paul Baker is the contributor. Paul Baker was awarded a Ph.D. in
linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and English language at Lancaster University
and is currently a Senior Lecturer. Paul baker presents that are useful how corpus linguistics
5

techniques can be used to aid a range of linguistics analyses. He defines corpus linguistics
and describes some of the theoretical concepts surrounding the field. He discusses the
distinction between corpus-based and corpus-drven. He also discusses various principles
that are useful to take into account when building and annotating a corpus. He reviews the
general corpora of British English, the comparisons of word frequencies, a key word analysis,
examinations of collocates and concordances.
He points out some critical considerations. First, corpora can be time-consuming,
expensive and difficult to build, requiring careful decisions to be made regarding sampling
and representatives. There is a continuing need to create up-to-date balanced reference
corpora, especially in languages other than English. Second, researchers who are not
computer literate may initially find it off-putting to have to engage with analytical software or
statistical tests. Although corpus linguistics is often seen as a quantitative form of analysis, in
fact human input is required at almost every stage, from corpus building to corpus analysis.
Third, corpus analysis works best at identifying certain types of patterns for example,
BNCWeb CQP edition allows users to search for patterns such as any adjective followed by
an optional noun, followed by a conjunction occurring somewhere later in the same sentence.
Overall, he confirms that those critics should not be preclude corpus analysis, but should
instead make users aware of potential limitations, giving them information about when
corpora should be used alone, when they could be combined with other methodological
approaches and when they might be best avoided.
In chapter 6, Judith Baxter is the contributor. Judit Baxter is a Senior lecturer in
Applied Linguistics at Aston University. She gained her Ph.D. Language, Gender and
Education at the University of Reading in 2000. She explores the different ways in which
discourse-analytic approaches reveal to the meaningfulness of text and talk. She reviews
four diverse approaches to discourse analysis of particular value for current research in
linguistics : Conversation Analysis ( CA ), Discourse Analysis ( DA ), Critical Discourse
Analysis ( CDA ) and Feminist Post-Structuralist Discourse Analysis ( FPDA ).
He explores four approaches to analyzing discourse that are of particular value to the
field of linguistics. First, CA is a micro analytical approach which offers a theoretical
framework, a terminology and systematic modus operandi for analyzing spoken discourse in
particular. Secondly, she points that DA offers linguists a bridge between micro and macro
analytical approaches in its key concept of the interpretative or linguistic repertoire.
6

Thirdly, CDA has always refuted that it is, in fact, a discourse-analytic approach. Finally,
FPDA aims to demonstrate that the notion of a contradiction between micro- and
microanalysis is irrelevant.
In chapter 7, Angela Creese is the contributor. Angle Creese is Professor of
Educational Linguistics at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK. She
describes linguistic ethnography and its methodological and analytical contribution to the
study of language and social life. She presents examples of its eclectic stance of combining
different traditions of discourse analysis with ethnography and debates the opportunities and
drawbacks of disciplinary and theoretical diversity. She describes two key issues in
linguistics ethnography. The first relates to interdiciplinarity and the second to the challenges
linguistic ethnography faces in the post modern era.
Angela Creese presents linguistic ethnography and interaction, questions and key
issues in linguistic ethnography, ethnography and post-structutalism, and the application of
methods. He believes that linguistic ethnography offers a new perspective relevant to
researchers working in the social sciences in post-modernity. Besides, it it offers a greater set
of resources than each field of study could offer on its own.
In chapter 8, Nigel Edley and Lia Litosseliti are the contributors. Nigel Edley is a
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at Nottingham Trent University. Lia Litosseliti is a
senior Lecturer in Linguistics at City University, London, with a Ph.D.in Linguistics from
Lancaster University. They present the use of both interviews and focus groups within social
science and linguistics research. They recommend that interviews and focus group as treated
as collaborative or interactional events in which the interviewer or moderator plays an
important, participative role.
Nigel Edley discusses the logic of the research interview or focus group, recent
challenges, in defense of interviews and focus groups. Nigel points one of the great
advantages of interviews and focus groups is their tremendous flexibility. On the one hand,
they can be used as the primary source of data.
In chapter 9, Jeff Bazemer and Carey Jewitt are the contributors. Jeff Bazemer is a
Research Officer at the Centre for Multimodal Research, Institute of Education, University of
London. Carey Jewitt is a Reader in Education and Technology at the London Knowledge
Lab, Institute of Education ( IoE ), University of London. They discuss multimodal
approaches to the study of linguistics, and of representation and communication more
7

generally. They draw attention to the range of different modes that people use to make
meaning betond languagesuch as speech, gesture, gaze, image and writing. They conclude
with a discussion of the potentials and constraints of multimodal analysis.
They explain the social linguistic approaches to multimodality, a social semiotic
approach to multimodality, collecting and analyzing multimodal data, a social semiotic study
of classroom interaction, a social semiotic study of learning resources, the potentials and
limitations of multimodal research.

In chapter 10, Julio C. Gimenez is the contributor. He is a lecturer at the Centre of
English Language Education, University of Nottingham, where he teaches academic literacies
to graduate and post graduate students. He introduces the key elements of traditional and new
emerging sociolinguistic approaches to the analysis of narratives, focusing specifically on
narrative networks. He reviews the main definitions of narratives and illustrates traditional
analytical perspectives, namely the componential and functional analyses.
He reviews an overview of the study of narrative. Narrative is often used
interchangeably with story, life story, account, discourse, narration, and tale with
little or no difference. He states some definitions from some experts. First, Labov and
Waletzky ( 1967 ) that defines any sequence of clauses which contains at least one temporal
juncture. Second, Linde ( 1993 ) defines a more sociolinguistic definition of narrative. Third,
Lieblich et.al ( 1998 ) defines narratives as stories which are usually constructed around a
core of facts or life events, yet allow a wide periphery for the freedom of individually and
creativity in selection, addition to, emphasis on, the interpretation of these remembered facts.
Fourth, Webster and Mertova states that narrative records human experience through the
construction and reconstruction of personal stories.
I think his discussion on this book is very good. He present the discussion of
designing narrative networks, putting theory to practice. He states four major stages in the
construction and analysis of narrative networks: data collection, analysis, interpretation and
explanation. He concludes that the analysis of narratives, even when appropriately located in
the context of production, hs tended to examine narratives as isolated discursive realizations,
failing to make a link between the local, sometimes personal, issues and the broader
sociolinguistic context.
8