Research Methods in Sociolinguistics: A Practical Guide
Authors:
Janet Holmes & Kirk Hazen
Data collection phrases:
- All data collection depends on physical fieldwork.
- Six steps to collect data: 1) selection of sites; 2) photographic documentation; 3) selection of and contact with participants; 4) conducting individual "walking tour" interviews on the selected sites; 5) transcription and analysis of interviews and field notes; 6) follow-up meetings with participants in order to validate findings and offer opportunities to continue the dialogue with the researcher.
- LL research needs to determine a survey area together with the institutional domains and types of signs to be covered. The survey area is often a district or neighborhood, specified down to a set of street blocks or a trajectory in urban space, which can be determined by a set of orientation markers such as subway stations.
- Comparative designs are common, by which similarities and differences in LL patterns within a city or across different cities are explored (e.g., Macau and HK).
- Institutional domains can be surveyed between "top-down" signs (issued by public authorities) and "bottom-up" signs (produced by commercial businesses). Transgressive signs (e.g., graffiti) are sometimes added.
- Determining the unit of analysis for data collection involves a complex set of procedural decisions, including questions like the following: [An example of comprehensive coverage is Backhaus (2007), who documented "anything from the small, handwritten sticker attached to a lamp-post to huge commercial billboards outside a department store", including stickers at entrance doors and lettered foot mass.]
1) Is the unit of analysis the individual sign, the shop window, or a specific chunk of space on the street?
2) What aspects of the materiality (physical shape) of signs shall be taken into account in the analysis?
3) Are multilayered shop windows documented in their entirety or do we just focus on the main signboard?
4) Are mobile signs (e.g., those placed on the street for the day) to be included?
LL fieldwork in Hamburg:
- The fieldwork design included a comparison of shopping streets in various districts: trendy inner-city neighborhoods, working-class immigrant areas, and affluent suburbs.
- Hypothesis: The frequency of various languages, notably German, English, and various migrant languages, would vary across the LL of these areas.
Photographic documentation
- Photographic documentation lies at the heart of LL data collection.
- Google Maps or other web-based map services can be used to display the photos at their topographic location.
Coding categories
Genoz and Gorter (2006): focus their coding on linguistic aspects of signs. The main categories include the type of signs; branches; the number of languages on the sign; and the distinction between top-down vs. bottom-up signs. Multilingual signs are additionally coded for the following variables: first language on the sign; amounts of information per language; semantic relation between the two languages on the sign; and fonts on the sign.
Backhaus (2007): monolingual vs. multilingual; languages on the sign; top-down vs. bottom-up; geographic distribution; and semantic relations between language elements on a sign.
Barni and Bagna (2009): mono- vs. multilingual signs; textual genre (e.g., advertisement, warning sign); location; domain (e.g., educational or work-related); and place (e.g., catering places, including kiosks and bars).
Collecting language policy documents (e.g., language policy documentation)
- When LL is studied from the angle of language policy, access to policy documents is an important additional dimension of data collection.
- E.g., Legislation acts or public authority manuals that regulate top-down signs at an airport or a city's subway system.
- Some countries or regions also control by law the languages that may be used on commercial signs.
Involving participants in LL research
- LL research that involves participants draws especially on interviews, but telephone questionnaires and field notes of fieldwork observations are also used (e.g., interviews with local business owners, participant observation, photograph and media analysis, interpretive walking/driving tours)
- Participant numbers are usually small and the overall approach is qualitative.
- Participant research with either producer or recipients, or both: examine the motivations for the choice of particular languages and other semiotic resources, their own interpretations of shop signs, and the impact of factors such as business sector, district, or target customers. (who makes these signs? who decides on their language choice, naming patterns, design, material, and so forth? What is the division of labor between commissioners and designers? )
- Participant research with local residents and/or passersby: questions cover the respondents' backgrounds and their views on the city's linguistic landscape, including their observed frequency of the relevant languages and their references to the language that they ought to be used in public space. Other researchers use so-called "walking tours" interviews, where interviews are conducted while walking (or driving) through the selected area to elicit local residents' self-reported emotional understandings and visual perceptions. (Do you go into stores that advertise in languages other than English? Do you go into stores that advertise in languages other than English? What do you think these languages say about the people in this area?)
Citation:
Hazen, K., & Holmes, J. (2014). Research methods in sociolinguistics a practical guide (Ser. 5). Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Further researches:
Backhaus, P. 2007. Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Barni, M. and Bagna, C. 2009. A mapping technique and the linguistic landscape. In Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery, ed. E. Shohamy and D. Gorter, 126–140. New York: Routledge.
Cenoz, J. and Gorter, D. 2006. Linguistic landscape and minority languages. International Journal of Multilingualism 3(1): 67–80.
