Linguistics & Discourse

Analysis
Collecting
Data

Dr. Alemi
Presenter: Ahmad Khanahmadi Dec 2020
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Introduction

practicality Ethics

Studying spoken discourse

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What kind of data?

There is no single prototype as good data

The purpose of collecting spoken language data is to find

out how some aspect of talk itself works

If we are to answer these questions conducting interviews

is not a good data collection procedure
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Observer’s paradox

People are
We just have to
talking all
collect and record
around us all
the data
the time

A great deal of spoken interaction

happens in circumstances that good
quality recording is impossible,
inconvenient or even unethical
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Observer’s paradox

There is also a question

How a researcher’s presence may effect people’s behavior?

We want to observe how people behave when they are

not being observed:
observer’s paradox
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Observer’s paradox

Whether researcher should ever set up a situation to generate a

talk for research purpose?

What is or what is not natural raise complicated issues.

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Observer’s paradox

Ordinary talk Vs. Institutional talk

what happens in what we do

casual contexts when we
with family and interact with
friends professionals
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Discourse analysts should be
cautious about privileging
any particular kind of data
the most desirable kind of
data and cautious also in our
assumptions about what
makes ordinary talk
If researchers have too many
preconceptions about what
they are going to find the
danger is that they will not
attend closely enough to
subtleties in a specific
situation
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Ethical questions

Might the easiest way to deal with the observers paradox be to

conceal the fact that observation is going on?

How much is it necessary to tell people?

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Other data sources

There are some kinds of

spoken data which the
researcher does not have The new medium of
to record because they
the internet is
already exist and are in
the public domain.eg: another potential
broadcast in radio or TV, source of data.
the issue of privacy here is
less problematic.
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Broadcast in radio or TV

Remember that broadcast is intellectual property just as printed material is,

its use for educational and research purposes may be subject to conditions and
restrictions.

Recording media talk should not be treated as a substitute for collecting other
kinds of talk, a radio or television discussion is not the same thing as a
discussion that is not designed to be broadcast

Broadcast talk has special characteristics which arise from the nature of the
medium and the political relationship it produces between speakers.
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Internet

One obvious drawback with getting spoken language data from

online corpus is that typically you only get the written transcript
thus the transcript may include added data from the researcher.

There is an enormous advantage in having access to corpora far

longer than you could collect.it is especially advantageous if you
want a lot of examples of a very well defined feature.
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How much data is enough?
How much data?
The amount of data depends on the researchers goals, resources and
the kinds of claims the researcher is hoping to be able to make up.

Linguistic researchers have approached this question with two

different answers: some have worked on very small and specific
samples, some others have chosen larger samples

A factor that affects how many different encounters you may have to
record is how frequently the variable you are interested in occurs in
talk like hesitations or minimal responses
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Summary
It is impossible to present
a set of invariant rules
about data collection such
as how much data, what
kind of data, obtained
through what method or
in what situation.
Recording peoples talks raises
ethical issues. it is said that talk is
cheap but anyone who allows you to
record their talk and turn it into an
object of analysis is showing great
generosity, they are giving you
something of themselves and
trusting you not to abuse that gift.
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THANKS!
Any questions?