obtaining-linguistic-data

Reading Practice
Obtaining Linguistic Data

A
Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a
carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection
about one's mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.
In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data - an informant Informants
are (ideally) native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other
kinds of information about the language (e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or
judgements on usage). Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own
informants, judging the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against
their own intuitions. The convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is
considered the norm in the generative approach to linguistics. But a linguist's personal
judgements are often uncertain, or disagree with the judgements of other linguists, at which
point recourse is needed to more objective methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as
informants.
The latter procedure is unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.
Many factors must be considered when selecting informants - whether one is working with
single speakers (a common situation when languages have not been described before),
two people interacting, small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background
and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind
of language used. The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting
(e.g. the level of formality) are also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the
informants (e.g. their fluency and consistency). For larger studies, scrupulous attention has
been paid to the sampling theory employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made
about the best investigative techniques to use.
Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist's claims about
the language to be checked, and provides a way of making those claims more accurate
('difficult' pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly). But obtaining naturalistic, good-
quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being
recorded, and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus
been devised to minimise the 'observer's paradox' (how to observe the way people behave
when they are not being observed). Some recordings are made without the speakers being
aware of the fact - a procedure that obtains very natural data, though ethical objections
must be anticipated. Alternatively, attempts can be made to make the speaker forget about
the recording, such as keeping the tape recorder out of sight, or using radio microphones.
A useful technique G is to introduce a topic that quickly involves the speaker, and
stimulates a natural language style (e.g. asking older informants about how times have
changed in their locality).
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E
An audio tape recording does not solve all the linguist's problems, however. Speech is
often unclear and ambiguous. Where possible, therefore, the recording has to be
supplemented by the observer's written comments on the non-verbal behaviour of the
participants, and about the context in general, A facial expression, for example, can
dramatically alter the meaning of what is said. Video recordings avoid these problems to a
large extent, but even they have limitations (the camera cannot be everywhere), and
transcriptions always benefit from any additional commentary provided by an observer.
Linguists also make great use of structured sessions, in which they systematically ask their
informants for utterances that describe certain actions, objects or behaviours. With a
bilingual informant, or through use of an interpreter, it is possible to use translation
techniques (‘How do you say table in your language?'). A large number of points can be
covered in a short time, using interview worksheets and questionnaires. Often, the
researcher wishes to obtain information about just a single variable, in which case a
restricted set of questions may be used: a particular feature of pronunciation, for example,
can be elicited by asking the informant to say a restricted set of words. There are also
several direct methods of elicitation, such as asking informants to fill in the blanks in a
substitution frame (e.g. I_see a car), or feeding them the wrong stimulus for correction ('Is it
possible to say / no can see?').
A representative sample of language, compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is

known as a corpus. A corpus enables the linguist to make unbiased statements about
frequency of usage, and it provides accessible data for the use of different researchers. Its
range and size are variable. Some corpora attempt to cover the language as a whole,
taking extracts from many kinds of text; others are extremely selective, providing a
collection of material that deals only with a particular linguistic feature. The size of the
corpus depends on practical factors, such as the time available to collect, process and
store the data: it can take up to several hours to provide an accurate transcription of a few
minutes of speech. Sometimes a small sample of data will be enough to decide a linguistic
hypothesis; by contrast, corpora in major research projects can total millions of words. An
important principle is that all corpora, whatever their size, are inevitably limited in their
coverage, and always need to be supplemented by data derived from the intuitions of
native speakers of the language, through either introspection or experimentation.

Questions 1-5
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs labelled A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
1..................... the effect of recording on the way people talk
2..................... the importance of taking notes on body language
3..................... the fact that language is influenced by social situation
4..................... how informants can be helped to be less self-conscious
5..................... various methods that can be used to generate specific data
Questions 6-10
Complete the table below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.
METHODS OF OBTAINING LINGUISTIC

ADVANTAGES DISADVANT
DATA
method of enquiry no
6..................... as informant convenient enough
necessary with 7..................... the number of factor

non-linguist as informant
and child speech considered
allows linguists’ claims to be

recording an informant 8..................... of sou
checked
allows speakers’ 9..................... 10..................... migh
videoing an informant
to be observed certain things
Questions 11-14
Complete the summary of paragraph G below.

Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.
A linguist can use a corpus to comment objectively on 11...................... Some corpora

include a wide range of language while others are used to focus on a 12......................
The length of time the process takes will affect the 13..................... of the corpus. No
corpus can ever cover the whole language and so linguists often find themselves relying
on the additional information that can be gained from the 14..................... of those who
speak the language concerned.

Solution:
8. quality// the quality//
1. D
the poor quality
9. non-verbal
2. E behaviour// non-verbal
behavior
10. camera// video
3. C camera// recording//
video recording
11. frequency of
4. D usage// usage
frequency
12. particular linguistic
5. F
feature
6. (the) linguist
(acts)// (the) 13. size
linguists (act)
7. foreign
14. intuitions
languages

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Reading Practice

Obtaining Linguistic Data

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A representative sample of language, compiled for the purpose of linguistic analysis, is

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Which paragraph contains the following information?

NB You may use any letter more than once.

1..................... the effect of recording on the way people talk

2..................... the importance of taking notes on body language

3..................... the fact that language is influenced by social situation

4..................... how informants can be helped to be less self-conscious

5..................... various methods that can be used to generate specific data

Write your answers in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

METHODS OF OBTAINING LINGUISTIC

necessary with 7..................... the number of factor

allows linguists’ claims to be

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Write your answers in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.

A linguist can use a corpus to comment objectively on 11...................... Some corpora

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