Research methods in Sociolinguistics

The “observer’s paradox”: we want to observe how people speak when .....

• they are not being observed.

• they are being observed.

• they know they are being observed

..... ..... allow researchers to gather data from a large number of speakers in a relatively brief amount of time.

• written surveys

• oral interviews

• hidden observations

Choose the WRONG continuation of the sentence:

Prepared questionnaires administered by fieldworkers are not reliable because...

• fieldworkers can be biased

• interviewed people give biased answers

• fieldworkers can record the data incorrectly

The rapid and anonymous survey means

• the investigator seeks to elicit a set word or phrase in entirely

  naturalistic conditions

• the investigator seeks to elicit pronunciation of a word

• the investigator seeks to study the pronunciation of the speaker.

The sociolinguistic interview typically differs from

a survey in ....

• being relatively less structured

• being asked in a predetermined order and a prescribed form

• seeking brief responses to fairly direct questions

The length of the interview

• is no longer than 20 minutes

• depends on the purpose of the research

• is defined by the interviewee

Module questions are used in

• sociolinguistic interviews

• sociolinguistic surveys

• any questionnaire

Why is "position of the interviewer as a learner, in

a position of lower authority than the person he is talking to" useful strategy for an interview?

• it allows you to write down a lot of data

• it puts the interviewee in the position of a 'knowledgeable person'

• it provides with reliable data