Chapter 2
Litosseliti
“Quantitative, Qualitative or Both?: Combining Methods in Linguistic Research”
Jo Angouri
Overview:
Purposes:
a.
b.
to challenge the quantitative vs qualitative dichotomy
to address the issue of integrating the two paradigms in linguistic
research projects
Issues raised: the notion of a “third” methodological “paradigm” (the mixing)
the amount/extent of integration in research designs
Focus as example:
the area of workplace discourse.
Two Questions in mind:
i.
How can “mixed methods designs … contribute to the dissemination of
findings and the applicability of such research”?
ii.
How can we “overcome specific challenges involved in conducting research
in this area”? (in the mixed area, or in the area of workplace discourse?)
2.1
Mixed methods—“almost a synonym for collecting different datasets or applying more than
on emethod for the data analysis, provide ‘ways to answer research questions that could not
be answered n any other way’ (citing Tashakkori and Teddlie 2003, p. x)” Litosseliti p. 30
Even with mixing…the stereotypic views of the researchers persist
The “paradigm war” of the 1970s and 1980s* “where the ontological and epistemological
differences of the quantitative and qualitative approaches to research were foregrounded and
sharply contrasted.”
The chapter author suggests that there are two perspectives for looking at the relationships
between methodological approaches, and that they depend, to some degree, on how people
think about what methodology represents. Does it (and one’s choice(s)) represent a sort of
“research world view” (my words in her mouth)? (I think this is what she sees as a “purist”
view) Or are methods to be seen as “a collection of techniques.” (her words)?
*****ASIDE******
*This “war” and the use of the word paradigm, alludes to the effect of Thomas Kuhn’s
book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (first published in 1961, but published in multiple
new editions, becoming very popular in the late 1970s and 1980s (the language of
“paradigm” and such in our text is indebted to the awareness that this work (and that of
Monod, as well raised) (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ and
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/aug/19/thomas-kuhn-structure-scientificrevolutions and an interview with Ian Hacking (a very well-known philosopher of science) in
2012 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kuhn/) on how those who “did/do”
science think about it. A not unrelated book, Chance and Necessity, by Jacques Monod about
crossing boundaries from biology to chemistry (whence “molecular biology”) emerged in
1970. This article does a credible job of summarizing its content and impact, and leveling
some criticism (in a very Commentary sort of way)
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/chance-and-necessity-by-jacques-monod/
that decades later has had both responses and renewed interest. These are books that
provide perspective in the context of all sorts of changes in the way we look at not only
linguistic research, but at what studying language entails. And they should make us think
about linguistics and how we study language.
*****End of ASIDE*****
The four parts of the chapter
1.
an overview of current issues in mixed methodologies
2.
the “thorny issue of triangulation, and how it is used by researchers
3.
example studies in the analysis of workplace discourse
4.
what she thinks we should take from all of this
2.1
Qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and multimethod designs
The Issues:
I.
What are mixed methods and how do they get chosen?
depend on the questions and focus of the researcher. [but see below—what else they
depend on)
[note that she defines design in footnote 1. That she sees it necessary to do so is
important—not both that and the definition she uses—attributed to someone else—“a
procedure for collecting, [analyzing], and reporting research.” [my autocorrect does not
approve of British spelling]
[but see below—what else the choices researchers make may depend on]
An important point—design depends on the “questions and focus of the researcher.” Does
that reduce to “what works”, which she sees as a danger. She says “no,” because:
a.
there is a conceptual framework researchers have in the context of the paradigm of
mixing (just as they have in the other two)
b.
the research paradigm of mixed methods is “robust.” It has a definable character
(why she says what it’s not—“anything goes,” or, either a fusion, or the sum of
quantitative and qualitative approaches.
II.
Compatibility and Transferability of Data and Analysis
A.
across methods selected
B.
and again, methods (and the sorts of data they yield) may often be chosen for
a researcher’s “affiliation” or epistemological approach (how s/he thinks
about the area in which s/he is researching—and what the area is)
(remember our list in slide set 1—there are “borders” between those
areas).
C.
so, across different “communities”
[e.g. how might sociolinguistic research interact with what we know
about UG? Does SLA theory (much less UG) have anything to say about
TESL? Could SLA benefit from a theoretical/conceptual approach such as
dynamic systems theory?]
I retrieved the Schegloff article for you, and will post it.
*****ASIDE***** (sort of )
Don’t fail to notice that there is a journal with the title Journal of Mixed Methods Research.
(from which I’ve retrieved some of the articles she refers to). And don’t fail to notice when
it began. A brief history of the “paradigm” wars [the extended use of that word/term might
make you want it to be something you look up…] is in a short article I’ll also post; it might
be helpful. It appeared, however in a journal called Qualitative Methods.
*****End of ASIDE*****
D.
How does it work?
Mixing? Combining? Integrating?
[note the footnote explaining emic and etic perspectives—can you see how it works in
phonemics and phonetics? And in morphemics?]
Will one dominate? Is the “other” method introduced from the start
(design), in an approach—the gathering of data—fieldwork, or…, the interpretation (results)
and contextualization (what the role of the research is—how it works.)
E.
So, mixed methods might broaden one’s perspective, or deepen
understanding, but they’re not “magic.”
2.3
Triangulation: An Overused Term?
Why is this section treating this? Because triangulation often provides the impetus for
chosing mixed methods as a research approach. But what is it? Our chapter author’s first
paragraph takes us very few steps in the direction of an answer to this question, doesn’t it.
Before we find out about the several types, we need to know what it is.
Wikipedia is quite helpful here, actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_%28social_science%29
Wikipedia helpfully tells us, comes from navigation, where establishing the location of a
point in space depends on the convergence of multiple measures, increasing the certainty of
the accuracy of locating the point. So, if it turns out that people’s reports of what they say
are confirmed by what we record from what they actually say (something Labov notes often
doesn’t happen), our claims about what they say (and however we use in in some larger
context) are more firmly founded (how this relates to reliability and validity is also a
question).
Angouri, however makes an important point. Triangulation (where methods of collecting
and types of data collected are the different points) assumes that different kinds of data can
be compared in the same context. And the list of triangulation types from Denzin (which is
a foundational paper in this area) that Angouri cites suggests several challenges for
comparison and such.
data triangulation,
investigator triangulation (in a collaborative environment, the least likely to be
problematic…, but see the discussion in the context of workplace studies on p. 37…),
theoretical triangulation (something that seems to me a challenging border),
methodological triangulation (related to theoretical, and likely to affect data)
Angouri’s other point of exhortation is that (even in light of the challenges of bringing
together methodologies), there are other documented reasons for bringing different methods
together, and that triangulation and mixed methods have (to the detriment of each) often
been conflated.
*****ASIDE*****
As it is used in navigation, triangulation rests in the context of mathematics—geometry and
trigonometry—so it has an independent justification. But when we use it analogically in
social science (linguistic) research, the silent problem (which may be what is implicit in
Angouri’s challenges) is that there is no such independent justification—we think it helps to
have different kinds of data points that guide us in the same direction/allow us to draw the
same (provisional, and subject to subsequent testing) conclusions, or that tell us something
different—which will make us rethink our original hopes for an answer to a question, but
how do we really know that either of these “conclusion pathways” is a
helpful/productive/good/ “accurate” one?
*****End of ASIDE*****
It’s interesting that the research community does not overwhelmingly talk (in its research
reports) about the reasons for the practice of mixed methods—that discussion at this
section’s end was interesting: keep in mind the “practice without rationale” issue. Just to
think about when you’re reading the research of others.
2.4
Applying Mixed Methods in Research on Workplace Discourse
One part of this discussion makes the “multiple investigator” challenge clearer, as well as the
theoretical borders (particularly across the “pedagogical” and descriptive borders in the case
of LSP vs “(applied) sociolinguistics”).
Can you see how the differences in methodologies and theoretical stances (and arguably
purposes) might play out?
Typically, corpus analyses (as we’ll see in upcoming chapters) are seen as fundamentally
quantitative (makes sense—counting and measuring). But a new-ish method (so mixed a
methodology that it has its own label, perhaps…) “corpus assisted discourse study” (or
CADS). This Wikipedia piece is helpful in a number of ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus-assisted_discourse_studies
A very relevant (relevant to ethics, as well) point on p. 40 is that the design description of a
research study should indicate whether—and then how—a study may/will benefit those who
are being studied.
I thoroughly liked the discussion in the context of “[b]efore closing this chapter,…”
until, that is, p. 41, where she slips in a fairly robust slap at “unmixed-methodologies” for
their “mono-dimensional, purist approaches to research that [and she’s citing Holmes and
Meyerhoff, 2003)] ‘are potentially damaging to the spirit of enquiry.’” No. They just need
subsequent researchers who, in the spirit of inquiry (American spelling), will suggest other
perspectives, designs, methods, and data that might contribute to a deeper understanding of
the phenomenon investigated in the “mono-dimensional purist” approach.