RESEARCHING ABOUT LANGUAGE THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECTS...
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Transcript of RESEARCHING ABOUT LANGUAGE THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECTS...
RESEARCHING ABOUT LANGUAGE
THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
SAMPLE RESEARCH PROJECTS
INICIACIÓN A LA LINGÜÍSTICA INGLESA
2nd TERM
THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
THE STAGES OF RESEARCH
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE
RESEARCH
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
1. Select a topic
2. Give reasons for the choice
3. Decide type of research
4. Specify main objectives
5. Outline methodology
6. Look for data and collect a corpus of examples
7. Look for sources of information and study them
8. Formulate hypotheses and classify them
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
1. Selecting a topic
‘Doability’
2. Justifying the choice (reasons)
Motivation
(Personal) Interest
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
3. Deciding type of research Theoretical vs Applied (‘practical’)
Single structure/unit vs Comparison of structures/units
Monolingual vs Contrastive
4. Specifying main objectives
5. Outlining methodology
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
6. Looking for data and collecting a corpus
of examples
A corpus must be: homogeneous representative comprehensive
• geographical variety (‘dialect’)• temporal variety (‘syncrony’)• medium• register
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
(ELECTRONIC) CORPORA
British National Corpus: http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
Corpus Concordance English:
http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html
Mark Davies – BNC: http://corpus.byu.edu
The Collins Cobuild Concordance and Collocations Sampler:
http://www.collins.co.uk/Corpus/CorpusSearch.aspx
WebCorp: http://www.webcorp.org.uk
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
INTERNATIONAL CORPUS OF ENGLISH (ICE) TEXT CATEGORIES
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
7. Gathering (reference) information Dictionaries
Literature about morphosyntactic structure of English Books Journals
Native informants / Questionnaires
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
8. Formulating and classifying hypotheses
Questions leading to hypotheses: What sort of linguistic element are we going to describe?
At what level of description should we classify the linguistic
phenomenon under study?
What do we know about its form?
What do we know about its distribution?
What do we know about its function?
What do we know about its meaning?
Formulating and classifying hypotheses
What sort of linguistic element are we
going to describe? Grammatical category: Tense, Number, Comparison
Morpheme: dis-, -un, -er
Word (as ‘class’ / as single ‘lexical item’): Preposition, Noun;
accident
Phrase: Adjective Phrase, Verb Phrase; the concept of ‘Phrase’
Functional element: Subject, Modifier, Complement
Clause / Sentence: Relative Clauses, Conditional Clauses,
Compound Sentences
Formulating and classifying hypotheses
At what level of description should we classify the linguistic
phenomenon under study?
Inflections: morphemic and word levels
Adverbial clauses: clause and sentence levels
Passive voice: Clause level: active vs passive clauses; intensive vs passive; syntactic
constituents of passives
Phrase level: the passive verb phrase; restrinctions in terms of modifications;
passive VPs and –ed Adjective Phrases
Lexical level: Verbs accepting/rejecting passive voice
Word/Morphemic level: the passive ‘morpheme’; passive auxiliaries
Etc.
Formulating and classifying hypotheses
What do we know about its form? Morphemes (Derivational / Inflectional):
Spelling Pronunciation
Words: Spelling / Pronunciation Stress Structure: simple/complex/compound Inflections Word-formation potential
Phrases: Formal realization of constituents
Clauses: Formal character: Tensed vs Non-tensed clauses (Finite / Non-Finite) Formal realization of constituents Presence/Absence of subordinators Relationships between verb forms in main and subordinate clause
Formulating and classifying hypotheses
What do we know about its distribution? Which (other) elements are affected
How do they tend to co-occur?
What restrictions apply?
Formulating and classifying hypotheses
What do we know about its function?
What do we know about its meaning?
What the element ‘does’ both syntactically and semantically:
communicative force
Morphemic level: number, past
Clause: Passive vs active, coordination vs. subordination
THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
THE STAGES OF RESEARCH
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE
RESEARCH
CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH
1.Identification and isolation of the corpus
2.Analysis and study of the corpus
3.Description and classification of results
Identification and isolation of the corpus
Marginalexamples
Identification and isolation of the corpus
THE VERB PLAY
1. They needed loving. Robots can sing and PLAY games, but they can't love. Only the Sta
2. to entertainment, radio and TV can also PLAY a vital role in advancing the aims of ed
3. g without batteries. It can retrieve and PLAY audio from a CD-ROM in addition to text
4. story and writing and reading. I wrote a PLAY and directed it on our garden lawn. I
5. AMLET: Follow him, friends. We'll hear a PLAY tomorrow. (Aside to the PLAYER, who is t
6. be planted along roads and in parks and PLAY facilities for children should be create
7. Car Park. Skittle Alley. Beer Garden and PLAY Area. Room available for all types of fu
8. ic Development Committee hasn't always PLAYED the game, you never know wh
9. watched the television of an evening. PLAYED games and records and telephoned people,
10. probably the most PLAYED classical music in the world
11. This attractive and well-PLAYED recital is given on an Erard piano made
12. r does the loud ovation after a well-PLAYED, but not very insightful account of the
Identification and isolation of the corpus
INTENSIVE CLAUSESHe was silly.His eyes appeared enormous.He went mad.She had run naked.The book appeared publishedHe went there.He was worried.He appears in chains.The women were marched naked.He went fast.
CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH
2. Analysis and study of the corpus
Begin with a small number of examples
Analyse and classify them in relation to all
hypotheses
Outline preliminary conclusions
Include new examples (if necessary)
Analysis and study of the corpus
Analysis and classification of examples in relation to all hypotheses
ITEMExample of the item 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................
Analysis and study of the corpus
ITEM : ACCIDENTExample: Accidents, however, usually take us by surprise. 1. FORM (1a) It is a complex word, formed with a base and a derivational suffix: False: *Accid + ent(1b) It shows number contrast : True
‘Accidents usually take us by surprise’ ‘An accident usually takes us by surprise’. 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) It can take all type of determiners: (Partly) true:
The/These/His/Some/Many/No/All/Ø accidents usually take us by surpriseAn/The/This/His accident usually takes us by surprise.
But: *Much accident(s); Ø/All accident
3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) etc.
Description and classification of results
From Examples (Data) to Hypotheses (Description/Theory) The description should follow the order of the analysis.
ITEMExample 1 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................
ITEMExample 2 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................
ITEMExample 3 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................
HYPOTHESES ABOUT ITEM 1. FORM (1a) ......................................................(1b) ......................................................(1c) ...................................................... 2. DISTRIBUTION (2a) ......................................................(2b) ......................................................(3c) ...................................................... 3. FUNCTION/MEANING (3a) ......................................................(3b) ......................................................(3c) ......................................................
THEORETICAL – METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
THE STAGES OF RESEARCH
PLANNING THE RESEARCH
CARRYING OUT THE RESEARCH DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE
RESEARCH
DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
How does the item under study behave as regards form/distribution/function/meaning, according to examples examined?
The question of ‘frequency’.
How can we define the item?
Are there aspects which are still difficult to describe or explain and which deserve further investigation?
DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
RECONSIDERING HYPOTHESES
How far do our conclusions match initial hypotheses: completely/partially/at all?
Can we explain the differences? Were our hypotheses wrong? - Is our corpus of examples too small to reflect real
use? - Are we using a representative corpus?