Quantitative Research Methods for Linguists: A questions and answers approach for students

165 Pages·2017·2.059 MB·English

by  Tim Grant, Urszula Clark, Gertrud Reershemius, Dave Pollard, Sarah Hayes, Garry Plappert

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Quantitative Research
Methods for Linguists
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e Quantitative Research Methods for Linguists provides an accessible
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o introduction to research methods for undergraduates undertaking research
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6 for the first time. Employing a task-based approach, the authors demon-
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3 strate key methods through a series of worked examples, allowing students
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t daunting for the novice researcher.
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r ● Chapters framed around real research questions, walking the student
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e ● Basic questions and answers that every new researcher needs to know;
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de Quantitative Research Methods for Linguists is essential reading
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Tim Grant is Professor in Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, UK.
Urszula Clark is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Aston
University, UK.
Gertrud Reershemius is Professor in Language Contact and Linguistics at
Aston University, UK.
David Pollard is Learning and Teaching Support Manager at Aston
University, UK.
Sarah Hayes is Senior Lecturer in Technology Enhanced and Flexible
Learning at Aston University, UK.
Garry Plappert is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English Lan-
7 guage and Applied Linguistics at Birmingham University, UK.
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Quantitative Research
Methods for Linguists
A Questions and Answers
7 Approach for Students
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a Tim Grant, Urszula Clark,
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First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Tim Grant, Urszula Clark, Gertrud Reershemius, David Pollard,
7 Sarah Hayes and Garry Plappert
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0 The right of Tim Grant, Urszula Clark, Gertrud Reershemius, David
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r Pollard, Sarah Hayes and Garry Plappert to be identified as authors of this
e work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
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m the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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v All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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N or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
6 now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
0 or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
3 writing from the publishers.
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6 Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
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t registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
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] without intent to infringe.
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o British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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e A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
of A catalog record for this book has been requested
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t ISBN: 978-0-415-73631-2 (hbk)
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s ISBN: 978-0-415-73632-9 (pbk)
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ve ISBN: 978-1-315-18170-7 (ebk)
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[ by Apex CoVantage, LLC
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Contents
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e Preface ix
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N How to use this book if you are a student x
6 How to use this book if you are an instructor x
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3 Acknowledgements xi
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at PART I: BASIC STATISTICAL IDEAS 1
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o 1. Basic concepts of quantification and number 3
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r 1.1 Why quantify? 4
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f 1.2 What is a number? 6
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y 1.3 Classifying numbers 11
it 1.4 Converting nominal measures into continuous
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r numbers 17
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v 1.5 Fractions, decimals and percentages 18
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U 1.6 How you express probability with numbers 18
y [ 1.7 Summary 20
b 1.8 References 21
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d 2. Designing research projects which count things 22
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l 2.1 Introduction: the dinner party experience 22
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w 2.2 Designing a quantitative research project 25
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D 2.3 Data collection example: working with
questionnaires 31
2.4 Data collection example: the experimental approach 36
2.5 Data collection example: working with corpus data 38
2.6 Describing your data 40
2.7 Designing a study so that a statistical test is possible 44
2.8 What do we mean by data? 47
2.9 Summary 47
2.10 References 48
v
Contents
PART II: ASKING AND ANSWERING QUANTITATIVE QUESTIONS 51
3. Survey of the sexiness of Klingon: is your data
normal? 55
3.1 The research story 55
3.2 Designing the study to collect numerical data 55
3.3 Data collection 56
3.4 Describing the data with numbers 57
7 3.5 Describing the data with pictures 59
1 3.6 Drawing statistical conclusions from the data 65
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2 3.7 References 65
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m 4. Who speaks Low German with their children? Visualisation –
e describing words with pictures 67
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N 4.1 The research story 67
6 4.2 The role of visualisation 68
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3 4.3 Tables 69
0 4.4 Charts and graphs 71
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at 4.6 Boxplot graphs 75
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i 5.2 The data 79
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y 5.4 A follow-on research story? Identifying words that might
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e 5.5 Summary 90
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a 5.6 References 91
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w 6. Is there a difference in the way ‘ing’ is pronounced by people
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D from Birmingham and the Black Country? Testing for
difference using chi square 92
6.1 The research story 92
6.2 Designing your research to make the analysis
easy 95
6.3 The data 96
6.4 Answering the question with chi square analysis 100
6.5 Summary 101
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Contents
7. Do letter writers tend to use nouns and verbs together?
Scatterplots and correlation of linear data 103
7.1 The research story 103
7.2 Designing your research to make the analysis easy 104
7.3 The data 105
7.4 Answering the question using a Pearson’s correlation
analysis 110
8. Does the use of pronouns differ between two academic
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1 disciplines? Using t-tests to compare two groups 113
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0 9. Do different academic subjects have distinctive patterns of
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0 pronoun use? Comparison between three or more groups –
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0 one-way ANOVA 125
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a 9.1 The research story 125
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er 10.1 How to ruin your research project (and how to
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b Glossary 137
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e Index 149
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Preface
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e This book arises out of an Economic and Social Research Council funded
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6 language and linguistics at Aston University in Birmingham, UK. Through
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3 the project we examined the attitudes of our students to quantitative
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6: research methods and the barriers such students experience in responding
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t to quantitative methods both in their reading of linguistic research and also
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g linguistics students have typically given up maths in school earlier than
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r many of their international contemporaries and often come to a university
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f language or linguistics degree programme with negative experiences of
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y working numerically – and yet quantitative methods will always be an
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v Through our research project we developed and evaluated a problem-
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y questions at the centre. We’ve learnt to teach quantitative methods little
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d and often in small pieces within nearly every linguistics course/module.
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d We avoid corralling quantitative methods into a separate module and
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w specialist statistical software. It is our view that twenty-first century stu-
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D dents are expert computer users and well able to figure out how software
works if they know what they want it to do.
This book is structured into two parts. The first section is a general
introduction to statistical ideas. The second, question-and-answer section
is the core of this text. Finally, there is also a glossary of terms.
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