Critical Sociolinguistic Research Methods

Monica Heller is Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she is also a Past President of the American Anthropological Association. Sari Pietikäinen is Professor of Discourse Studies in the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is also Director of the Jyväskylä Discourse Hub. Joan Pujolar is Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Arts and Humanities Department at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain. He is also Director of the Research Group on Language, Culture and Identity in the Global World and a Past President of the Catalan Society of Sociolinguistics.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

0.1 Why Language Matters Now

0.2 Research as Socially Constructed Knowledge

0.3 Research as Experience and as Conversation

0.4 The Research Process: Sequencing, Recursivity and Rhizome

0.5 The Authors as Your Guides and Conversational Partners

0.6 Summary

1 First Key Moment: Formulating Your Research Question

1.1 Research Questions as (Hi)Stories and Conversations

1.2 Different Ways to Get to Your Research Questions

1.3 Reflexivity, Ethics and Research Questions

1.4 Summary

2 Second Key Moment: Designing Your Research

2.1 What Is Research Design?

2.2 Research Design as Projected Work Plan

2.3 Where to Start? With Whom?

2.4 Approaches and Evidence

2.5 Data Recording and Documentation

2.6 Ethics and Politics

2.7 Research Design as Discursive Genre

2.8 Summary

3 Third Key Moment: Generating your Data

3.1 Fieldwork: Producing Data

3.2 Observing: Finding Out What People Do

3.3 Eliciting: Finding Out What People Say

3.4 Material Traces: Other Voices

3.5 Summary

4 Fourth Key Moment: Analyzing Your Data

4.1 What Is Analysis? What Does It Feel Like to Do It?

4.2 Mapping (and Categorizing)

4.3 Tracing

4.4 Connecting

4.5 Claiming

4.6 Analysis as Ethical and Political Conversation

4.7 Pulling It Together

4.8 Summary

5 Fifth Key Moment: Making Your Story

5.1 Writing the Story the Research Tells

5.2 Researchers as Knowledge Producers

5.3 Genre Expectations

5.4 Knowledge Mobilization

5.5 Summary

6 Shop Floor

6.1 Introduction: What Do We Mean by Shop Floor?

6.2 Moment 2: Designing Your Research

6.3 Moment 3: Generating Your Data

6.4 Moment 4: Analyzing Your Data

6.5 Moment 5: Making Your Story

Epilogue

References

Further Reading

Index