Sociolinguistic Field Methods

Catalog description

Students are introduced to the qualitative and quantitative methods used in sociolinguistic and anthropological fieldwork, from traditional dialectological to contemporary experimental approaches, to gather and analyze data. Additionally, students receive intensive practical training in the collection of linguistic data from native speakers using a combination of reading, discussion, fieldwork, computer-mediated communication and experimental design. The data-gathering methods which will be covered are: elicitations, questionnaire investigations, sample investigations (e.g., anonymous interviews, mass media monitoring), ethnography, entering and observing the speech community (e.g., participant-observation), individual interviews, group interviews, using formal methods (e.g., reading passages), eliciting and analyzing specific linguistic features via interviews and/or surveys. We also consider the following related topics: research questions and goals, ethics, working in the community, technical equipment, record-keeping, human subjects approval, transcription, quantitative analysis, discourse analysis and the use of different data-gathering methods (i.e., sociolinguistic and formal linguistics). The end goal is for students to either: 1) formulate a strong research agenda, or 2) generate a corpus for future research and coursework.