Observations, Case studies, Recordings September 17, 2008

Human subjects research Observations Case studies Recordings Experiments Questionnaires Interviews Before starting... IRB (Institutional Review Board)

Human subjects research For each type of HSR, we will examine a. What it is/when to use it (with what kind of data) b. How to use it (example studies using these methods) c. Advantages and disadvantage a. observer’s paradox b. data collection c. data analysis d. variable control

1. Observations a. What are they/when to use them: "The collection of data without manipulating it: Simply observe ongoing activities, without making any attempt to control or determine them" When to use them: a. When the subjects are too young or too vulnerable to get good data otherwise b. When you really want to avoid the observer’s paradox c. Mostly used by sociolinguists/L1 and L2 acquisition researchers examining behavior in social situations (conversation analyses, pronunciation differences, classroom behavior, children at play)

1. Observations b. How to use them/previous studies: 3 types: a. Non-participant observations (speech errors, comments in classrooms, Oprah study, FLSR) b. Participant observations (jocks and burnouts, children play time) c. Covert observations (street and shtreet, might could, fourth floor, help desk at ASB )

1. Observations b. How to use them/previous studies: General methodology: Different environments yield different data (e.g. slips of the tongue) Make notes on environmental variables (time of day, number in group, what doing, male/female, etc) If possible, decide what you want to examine, make a tally sheet for easy analysis

Observations Example Goldin-Meadow (1982) and Judy Kiegel: Looked at children in Nicaraugua who grew up in a school for deaf children —were not allowed to learn sign language —but still developed sign language together Goldin-Meadow (1997) looked at children in Nicaraugua who develop their own sign language—the language looks very similar across all the children

1. Observations c. advantages/disadvantages Advantages: Disadvantages:

2. Case studies a. What are they/when to use them: Case studies involve observing one or more individuals (but usually very few) over an extended period of time When to use them: Longitudinal studies (sign language study) Individual circumstances (Paradis aphasia victims) Complex phenomena/interesting cases (Christopher) Can use in: L1, L2 Speech impediments / aphasia-stroke / speech therapists

2. Case studies b. How to use them (example, Genie, Christopher) Hopefully someone you know and who feels comfortable with you (often researchers use their children) Treat the subject with respect Create baseline and measure from there Measure often and the same thing over and over again Tend to collect a lot of data, then sort through to determine what is important

Case Study Example: Christopher (Neil Smith, 1995) Non-verbal IQ of 60 Cannot tie shoes or live on his own Can speak 16 different languages. Learned Dutch on the way to an talk show interview through reading a book Learned Hindi from brother-in-law—just by listening to him speak

2. Case studies c. Advantages: Disadvantages:

3. Recordings a. What are they/when to use them: Note: Ethical question on recordings (book says OK, but US / IRB issues) observations/case studies/interviews pronunciation: ethnic influence foreigner talk first language acquisition vocabulary: frequency of usage regionalisms conversation analysis

3. Recordings b. How to use them Practical considerations: Audio only or audio and video? What kind of recorder/microphone? (analog or digital?) Problems with subjects wanting/being able to record Identifying speakers Quiet place, no kids running around, traffic New technologies: Recording from Internet (e.g. BBC or regional English): Replay A/VReplay A/V For transcripts only, can sometimes get these on Web: e.g. CNN, NPR, movie scriptsCNNNPR movie scripts PodCasting, etc

3. Recordings c. Advantages/disadvantages Advantages Disadvantages

3. Recordings Examples of Recordings Linguistic Data ConsortiumLinguistic Data Consortium: Membership, collects corpora, used by programmers, speech recognition-transcribed orthographically, phonetically, time stamp. Examples: Switchboard CallHome CallFriend Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English