1,720,982 research outputs found
Mixed-methods approaches to the study of language attitudes
Full text linkThe use of more than one method is advisable in the study of any aspect of language as it allows for a more comprehensive understanding of complex issues and problems than the use of any one method on its own (see e.g. Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2009). It has long been recognised that mixed methods research is particularly important where language attitudes are concerned (see e.g. Agheyisi and Fishman 1970). Ideally, all three types of methods that can be used to investigate language attitudes should be employed – that is, direct and indirect methods as well as content analysis of the societal treatment of languages/varieties. Yet if this is not possible, at least a combination of two methods is recommended because, as Ryan et al. (1987: 1076) note, ‘[t]o use only one method […] is to be guilty of misunderstanding the nature of language attitudes.’This chapter will introduce readers to the key issues that should be borne in mind when conducting mixed methods research – including, for instance, the order in which particular methods should be used and why, the nature of the required participant sample(s), and issues pertaining to the analysis of data resulting from different methods.These key issues will be illustrated by means of two case studies. The first case study (Kircher 2014) was conducted to investigate attitudes towards French and English in the Quebec context, and it made use of a matched-guise experiment and a questionnaire. The reason for choosing these was that direct and indirect methods often yield quite different results. This is by no means an issue of relative methodological merit but is due to the fact that they simply produce results at different levels of analysis: they ‘lay claim to quite different layers of experience and as such manifest sometimes quite contradictory, yet highly rational, attitude constellations’ (Ryan et al. 1987: 1076). This case study thus demonstrates that using mixed-methods approaches thus leads to a deeper understanding of language attitudes as part of larger social processes (cf. Cargile et al. 1994) in a manner that no one method on its own could do. The second case study (Hawkey 2018) examined the situation of societal bilingualism of French and Catalan in Northern Catalonia, focusing on attitudes towards Catalan. It made use of direct elicitation methods in the form of qualitative interview data, and analysis of the societal treatment of Catalan by means of variable analysis. The combination of micro-level practices (in the form of variable language use, providing examples of the conative component of attitudes) and macro-level data revealed in semi-structured interviews offers a comprehensive account of the multifaceted nature of attitudes in a given sociolinguistic context. The combination of direct elicitation methods and societal treatment analysis allows for a broader representation of the attitudinal and ideological landscape of a specific language community than could be afforded by the use of one method alone. <br/
Attitudes towards Multicultural London English: Implications for attitude theory and language planning
No full textThe study presented here is the first empirical investigation of attitudes towards Multicultural London English (MLE), the multiethnolect spoken in England’s main metropolis. An online questionnaire was used to gather data from 800 participants, including MLE speakers as well as non-MLE speakers from a wide variety of different backgrounds. The results indicate that the traditional dichotomy of status and solidarity as distinct evaluative dimensions does not manifest in attitudes towards MLE. We discuss the implications this would have for attitude theory, provided that this finding holds true for other multiethnolects.
The results also indicate that overall, attitudes towards MLE are affected by (1) individuals’ own variety of English, (2) their mother tongue(s), (3) their level of education, and (4) the frequency of their contact with MLE speakers. We interpret the effect of these variables to be due to (1) ingroup loyalty, (2) familiarity with social stereotypes, (3) enhanced reasoning skills, and (4) the reduction of stereotypes through intergroup contact. We discuss the implications these findings – should they generalise to the London population at large – would have for the development of effective language planning measures to promote social equality for multiethnolect speakers
An Introduction to Language Attitudes Research
No full textBy providing an introduction to language attitude theory, this chapter serves as a reference point for the subsequent chapters. The chapter begins by considering attitudes in general (their formation, functions, and components) before focusing specifically on language attitudes. The chapter examines the link between language and social identity, the notion of language attitudes as reflections of social mores and the related issue of language attitude change, and the difference between (and inter-relatedness of) language attitudes and ideologies. The chapter then discusses the implications and consequences of language attitudes at the micro as well as the macro level. Subsequently, the chapter covers the key individual and socio-structural factors that influence language attitudes, and it discusses the evaluative dimensions of language attitudes (and how they are connected to the aforementioned socio-structural factors). The chapter introduces the three types of methods by means of which language attitudes can be investigated – that is, the analysis of the societal treatment of language, direct methods, and indirect methods – and the key overarching issues in language attitudes research which are covered in the book (i.e. regarding different community types, different data types, priming, and mixed-methods approaches). The aims of the book, and its structure and contents, are explained
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Multicultural London English and its speakers: a corpus-informed discourse study of standard language ideology and social stereotypes
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Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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