NATIONAL AND KAPODISTRIAN
UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANG & LIT
DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS
COURSE: PLANNING AND CONDUCTING RESEARCH
7th Semester, Fall 2015-16
INSTRUCTOR: Elly Ifantidou
TENTATIVE COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1 (September 28): Introduction to the course – Thinking about research –
Finding and noting information – Compiling a working bibliography
Week 2 (October 5):
Academic research/texts vs. Popular research/texts
(Initial bibliography list due)
Week 3 (October 12):
Tutorials (#904)
Week 4 (October 19): Article review
Week 5 (October 26): Dealing with reading material - Outlining
(Article review due)
Week 6 (November 2): Tutorials (#904)
Week 7 (November 9): Research proposal
(Outline due)
Week 8 (November 16): Tutorials (#904)
Week 9 (November 23): Methods of data collection – Analyzing/Interpreting data
(Research proposal due)
Week 10 (November 30): Tutorials (#904)
Week 11 (December 7): Writing up research paper
Week 12 (December 14): Writing up research paper / Tutorials (by appointment)
Week 13 (December 21): Submit research paper (#904)
A. Research assignments (50% of the mark)
1. Initial bibliography list
(5%) (P/W)
2. Research proposal
(10%) (P/W)
3. Article review
(20%)
4. Outline
(5%) (P/W)
5. Tutorials/Oral defense*
(10%)
*Participation in tutorials in terms of questions raised, critical and independent thinking, originality of
ideas, interest in the topic, English language competence, overall potential for academic research. Both
individual contribution and team work are assessed.
B. Research (final) paper (50% of the mark)
Maximum length of the main body of the research paper: 2,500 words
The research paper should comprise the following parts:
Cover page
Outline
Paper (main body)
Bibliography
Appendix
C. The final bibliography list (as it will appear in your research paper) should contain at
minimum 8-10 readings coming from Journals, Books, Reference material (Dictionaries,
Encyclopedias) (on-line material should be used with caution as potentially non-academic).
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D. Indicative AREAS OF RESEARCH
About the English Language as L1 and L2
Language of Newspapers/Magazines
Academic discourse vs. News discourse in the press
Language Development - First Language Acquisition
Language acquisition and conceptual development
Second Language Acquisition – Pragmatic Transfer – Learning difficulties
Teaching idioms / metaphors / humour in L2
Loanwords
New trends in English
Internet and English
Texting
About language
Language and power
Bilingualism
Language, the sexes and society
Language and attitudes
Language and ideology
Male and female stereotypes
Use of Greek in EFL textbooks
The language of advertising
Observing and analyzing natural language
Literature and culture
Gender and Literature / Women’s Writing
Ancient Greek Mythology in modern literature/poetry
Travel Writing
The “Canon”
Film adaptations of classics (Jane Austen, Shakespeare, etc)
African-American Literature
Certain theme in complete works of an author  “Echoes of slavery in Toni Morrison’s fiction”
The American Dream
The Immigrant Experience / Immigrant Literature / Theme of Nostalgia
Literature and Technology
Children’s Literature
Good v Evil
The American Short Story
Translation of Literary Works
Colonialism
Romantic Poetry
“The Death of the Author”
Some general areas
Media
Everyday interaction
Social issues
Environment
Social problems
New Technologies
Impact of new technologies
Computers in teaching and learning
Exploring needs for computer literacy
New technologies and language change
NB - Comparative work is particularly welcome.
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PLANNING AND CONDUCTING RESEARCH
FALL 2015-16
INSTRUCTOR: Dr E. Ifantidou
Distinguish between
RESEARCH AREAS
and
RESEARCH TOPICS
In other words,
narrow down on a research topic (or a research question)
PRACTICE: only a few of the titles below qualify as research topics. The rest are
broad research areas within which several topics can be sought and formulated.
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Media Discourse: Language in the TV News
Bilingualism
Games in ELT Classroom
Do women and men speak differently?
The Graphic Novel in the American and British Society
Teaching Aids: What Happens in Practice?
Dyslexia in English as a Foreign Language: Teaching and Learning
Difficulties
First Language Acquisition: Does it Have to be Taught?
The role of the Internet in the promotion of English as a global language and
the phenomenon of multi-lingualism on the Web as a counter-balance
Globalisation and English
Loanwords from Computer Technology in Greek
On Motherese in Child Language
On Child-Directed Speech
Language and Gender
Hedges as Versatile Linguistic Forms
Language Attitudes of Bilingual Albanian Children in Greece
Language Acquisition: Syntactic Development of Greek Children
Sexism in Language
Different Linguistic Behaviour of Women and Men: Politeness as a Linguistic
Feature in Women’s Speech
Sexist Language in “Chasing Amy” by Kevin Smith
The Role of Teaching in First Language Acquisition
Methods of teaching children the English language
The Use of Computers in learning centres of English Language
Audiovisual aids in ELT
Bilingualism: A Burden or an Asset?
American English Vs British English
Games in ELT classroom: Dealing with them from another perspective
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Online Research
University of Athens Library System
(1) To access the book databases on the UoA system, you must be on a computer that is logged
on to the UoA library network.
Go to www.lib.uoa.gr/opac
Basic search: Search the library catalog by entering your general keyword terms and select the
‘go’ button.
e.g., if you want to find information on Chaucer’s portrayal of love, type in “Chaucer” and
“Love”. If your search yields results (book titles), select the “show details” to browse through
contents of each title and select the relevant ones. Once you have selected the book titles that
are relevant, go to “where can I find it?” at the bottom on the page, and you will find the library
location and call number of the book you want.
To refine your search, e.g. using author, book title, subject, journal title, etc, you can select the
Advanced Search option.
(2) To access the journal databases on the UoA system, you must be on a computer that is
logged on to the UoA library network.
For finding an article from a journal when you know the exact reference:
You are doing a paper on Chaucer’s portrayal of love and you have found the following
reference to an article:
Gross, Karen Elizabeth. 2006. “Chaucer, Mary Magdalene, and the Consolation of Love.” The
Chaucer Review 41: 1–37.
Go to www.lib.uoa.gr.
Ηλεκτρονικά Περιοδικά: Αναζήτηση άρθρων (περιλήψεις ή / και πλήρες κείμενο) στα
ηλεκτρονικά περιοδικά του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών
Κατάλογος Ηλεκτρονικών Περιοδικών HEAL-Link
Πρόσβαση στον αλφαβητικό κατάλογο των περιοδικών όλων των εκδοτικών οίκων με τους
οποίους έχει συνάψει συμφωνία η HEAL-Link.
Select “C” for Chaucer Review, The
Select the journal, issue, volume, and article.
Select and read the Abstract (summary) first to see if it is a relevant/useful article.
For browsing journal articles on a certain subject:
You are looking for articles on Chaucer’s portrayal of love.
Go to www.lib.uoa.gr.
Ηλεκτρονικά Περιοδικά: Αναζήτηση άρθρων (περιλήψεις ή / και πλήρες κείμενο) στα
ηλεκτρονικά περιοδικά του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών
 Αναζήτηση Άρθρων μέσω HEAL-Link (HEAL-Link Search)
(αλφαβητικό κατάλογο των περιοδικών όλων των εκδοτικών οίκων μέσω ΗΕΑL-Link)
 Scan for possible journal titles in the research domain your topic falls under
e.g. Literary theory, Fiction, Poetry.
If you are working on Chaucer, try Chaucer (under C)
if you are working on Dyslexia, try Dyslexia (under D),
if you are working on Politeness, try Sociolinguistics (under S), or Discourse (under D),
if you are working on Games in ESL, try Applied Linguistics (under A)
Ταυτόχρονη αναζήτηση στις ηλεκτρονικές πηγές του Συνδέσμου, στο Συλλογικό Κατάλογο
των Ελληνικών Ακαδημαϊκών Βιβλιοθηκών και σε επιλεγμένες ιστοσελίδες.
By «επιλεγμένες ιστοσελίδες», we mean websites that contain content that is considered
academic and whose sources are footnoted and can be traced back to a specific reference. The
internet is full of ‘traps’ and information that is not reliable, and as a research student, you must
learn to distinguish between unreliable information and documented, reliable information.
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INTRODUCTION
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What is research?
How do you formulate a research problem?
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proving your theory/something (an idea, a claim, a hypothesis) you want
to prove
examining critically
understanding and formulating principles
developing and testing new theories
questioning established theories/principles
time-consuming
scientific
objective (but can be subjective too)
can lead you in unexpected directions
can be done in many ways
Research is
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In one line, research is collecting, analyzing and interpreting information to answer questions
(the question/s you have set yourself at the onset as “research problem”).
BUT to qualify as research, the process you are involved must meet some requirements/must
have certain characteristics. Research must be, as far as possible:
 systematic: the procedures adopted to undertake an investigation follow a certain
logical sequence. The different steps cannot be taken in a haphazard way. Some
procedures must follow others.
 valid and verifiable: whatever you conclude on the basis of your findings is correct and
can be verified by you and others.
 empirical: any conclusions drawn are based upon hard evidence gathered from
information collected from real life experiences or observations.
 critical: the process of investigation must be foolproof and free from any drawbacks.
The process adopted and the procedures used must be able to withstand critical
scrutiny.
TYPES of RESEARCH
 from the viewpoint of objectives:
Descriptive research: attempts to describe systematically a situation, problem,
phenomenon, service or program, or provides information about an issue or describes
attitudes towards an issue.
Eg. describe how a linguistic phenomenon, say evidentiality or politeness is
manifested/linguistically encoded in Modern Greek or in English
Describe what it means to go through a divorce, how a child feels living in a house
with domestic violence, or the attitudes of employees towards management
Correlational research: the aim here is to discover or establish the existence of a
relationship/association/interdependence between two or more aspects of a
situation/of a phenomenon.
What is the relationship between technology and employment?
What is the relationship between stressful living and the incidence of heart attacks?
What is the effect of a health service on the control of a disease?
What is the effect of new technologies on education?
How does language and cognitive development correlate?
Explanatory:
attempts to clarify why and how there is a relationship between
two aspects of a situation or a phenomenon.
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E.g. this type of research attempts to clarify
- why stressful living results in heart attacks
- how the home environment affects children’s level of academic
achievement
- why is there a lag between cognitive and linguistic development?
- why do children use certain types of MG evidentials earlier than others?
Although, theoretically, a research study can be classified in one of the above
perspectives, in practice, most studies are a combination of these three categories, that is,
they contain elements of descriptive, correlational and explanatory research. And the
idea is that you are also encouraged to integrate these aspects of research to the extent that
you can do so.
TYPE OF INFORMATION SOUGHT
From the viewpoint of the type of information you seek through your research, research can be
classified as qualitative or quantitative.
The study is classified as qualitative if: the purpose of the study is primarily to describe a situation,
phenomenon, problem or event. You may establish the variation in a situation, phenomenon or
problem without quantifying it.
E.g. the description of an observed situation, the historical enumeration of events, an account of
different opinions people have about an issue, the description of evidential markers MG
employs are examples of qualitative research.
BUT if you want to quantify the variation in a phenomenon, situation or problem or issue, if your
analysis is designed to assess the magnitude of the variation, the study is known as a
quantitative study.
Eg. How many people have a particular problem?
How many people hold a particular attitude?
What percentage of MG evidential linguistic input is of a certain lexical type (eg. particles) and of
those what percentage has a certain interpretation (rather than another)?
In a quantitative study, you may use statistics in order to test: confirm or contradict the conclusions
you have drawn on the basis of your understanding of analysed data. Statistics certainly help
you to quantify the magnitude (degree, extent) of an association or relationship, show to your
readers how much confidence you can place in your findings. For example, it is not particularly
convincing claiming that more children use MG evidential verbs and fewer children use MG
evidential particles.
As with the objectives of research, where you should combine descriptive, correlational and
explanatory types of research, it is usually the case, that research is neither solely qualitative
nor solely quantitative.
Of course, disciplines like anthropology, history, sociology, literature are more inclined towards
qualitative research, whereas psychology, education, economics, marketing are more inclined
towards quantitative research.
However, this does not mean that an economist or a psychologist never uses the qualitative approach,
or that an anthropologist never uses quantitative information. More and more, most disciplines
in the social sciences recognize that both types of research are important for a good research
study. The research problem itself should determine whether the study is classified as
qualitative or quantitative.
You should keep in mind that in many studies you need to combine both qualitative and quantitative
approaches.
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REFERENCES
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