Revision:How to Construct a Methodology

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1. Which language features you will be studying
2. What type of data you will collect
3. How you will collect it and over what time period (including respondents)
4. How will you ensure your data is natural and valid (Evaluate methodology)
5. How you would analyse the data

Which language features you will be studying

E.g. nouns/verbs

What type of data you will collect

Primary language data

• Spoken language
• Written language
• Word lists
• Graphological features of texts
• Pronunciation features

Secondary language data

• Attitudes to language
• Uses of languages
• Views about language

Do you need

• Comparative language data
• Contrasting language data
• Longitudinal data

How you will collect it and over what time period

Who are the respondents

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Class
• Education
• Social networks

How you will collect it (include what time period)

• Taping
• Photocopying
• Experiments (useful for testing out a theory)
• Questionnaire (useful for finding out about attitudes to language)
• Interviews (useful for collecting conversational data)
• Observation study (collecting natural data by observing and recording what happens)
• Case study
• Formality Level (Reading passage style, word list style)
• Quantitative approaches
• Qualitative approaches
• Self-reported usage
• Social networks analysis
• Replication study

How will you ensure your data is natural and valid (evaluate methodology)

Mention the observer’s paradox and strategies to minimise it e.g. familiarisation, distracters

Mention the problem of demand characteristics

Mention any limitations in the study

Discuss ethical issues such as permission, avoiding deception, anonymity

How you would analyse the data

• Variation studies
• Stylistic approaches
• Social groups
• Avoiding deficit models when studying children’s language

Using theoretical frameworks such as face theory or Grice’s maxims

What do you expect to find? How would the results be interesting

There are essentially two types of investigations/tasks you could be asked for

1. A function/use based task
2. An attitudes based investigation

Comments

These notes are aimed at A Level English students at A2 level.

Originally written by star18 on TSR Forums.