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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Quantitative needs to be
tempered with qualitative research.</blockquote><br>
Or... the quantitative results need to be <u>interpreted</u>...<br><br>
<br>
At 17:53 07/12/2006, Alison Duguid wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Looks like a case of
shifting or wobbly priming to me, as Michael Hoey has pointed out
education has a key role in priming and the problem might be caused
by doubt in a situation when fears about correctness are uppermost
because shifting identities are at work. The questioner is really asking
someone who is perceived to be a native speaker of a <br>
variety (academic/correct) in which he felt he was not a native, what
would be the acceptable version.<br>
Also look how many hits you get for 'nucular', and then look again at the
co-texts and contexts. Quantitative needs to be tempered with qualitative
research.<br><br>
<br>
Geoffrey Sampson wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">An amazing experience I had a
few years ago was being asked in all<br>
seriousness by one of my part-time researchers whether "a bad
egg" or<br>
"an bad egg" was correct. With another part of his time
he worked for a<br>
company alongside another man who had to do some documentation and<br>
insisted that the correct form was "an bad egg". So far
as I could make<br>
out, this other man (who, like my researcher, was as I understood it
a<br>
native speaker) thought he had learned a rule that "a" v.
"an" depends<br>
on whether the following noun begins with a vowel, and this explicit<br>
rule overrode in his mind what must surely have been a large weight
of<br>
experience implying that it is not the following noun, but the<br>
immediately-following word, that matters. The third party was
quite<br>
sure that only "an bad egg" would do in writing; my researcher
was<br>
dubious, but felt he needed my professorial authority to contradict
his<br>
colleague. This seemed to me very striking counter-evidence against
the<br>
idea that native speakers "know" the rules of their
language.<br>
Comparable misunderstandings of the a/an rule might perhaps explain<br>
sporadic cases of "an w..." written by people who would surely
_say_ "a<br>
w..." when they were speaking spontaneously, without thinking
about<br>
language issues.<br><br>
Geoffrey Sampson<br><br>
............................................................<br>
Prof. Geoffrey Sampson MA PhD MBCS CITP
ILTM<br><br>
author of "The 'Language Instinct'
Debate"<br><br>
Department of Informatics, University of Sussex<br>
Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QH, England<br><br>
<a href="http://www.grsampson.net /" eudora="autourl">
www.grsampson.net </a> +44 1273 678525<br>
............................................................<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote><br><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Ramesh Krishnamurthy<br><br>
Lecturer in English Studies, School of Languages and Social Sciences,
Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK<br>
[Room NX08, North Wing of Main Building] ; Tel: +44 (0)121-204-3812 ;
Fax: +44 (0)121-204-3766<br>
<a href="http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/krishnamurthyr.jsp" eudora="autourl">
http://www.aston.ac.uk/lss/staff/krishnamurthyr.jsp<br><br>
</a>Project Leader, ACORN (Aston Corpus Network):
<a href="http://corpus.aston.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
http://corpus.aston.ac.uk/</a></body>
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