37.2629, Reviews: Research Methods in Linguistics: Lia Litosseliti (ed.) (2024)

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Subject: 37.2629, Reviews: Research Methods in Linguistics: Lia Litosseliti (ed.) (2024)

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Date: 10-Aug-2026
From: Viatcheslav Yatsko [iatsko at gmail.com]
Subject: Applied Linguistics, General Linguistics: Lia Litosseliti (ed.) (2024)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/36-417

Title: Research Methods in Linguistics
Publication Year: 2024

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/research-methods-in-linguistics-9781350429154/

Editor(s): Lia Litosseliti

Reviewer: Viatcheslav Yatsko

SUMMARY
Linguistics is a vast multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field,
and research methods used to obtain new knowledge have always been and
will be of interest to scholars, students, and investigators who study
linguistic data. The most important specific feature of this book is
that it does not concentrate on a separate subfield of linguistics
offering the descriptions of some techniques that can be applied in
different subfields of study.
The book comprises an Introduction and 13 chapters grouped into 3
parts, written by 17 authors from the UK, USA, Canada, and
Switzerland. Each chapter includes a list of references, suggestions
for further reading, a list of online resources, discussion questions,
guided activities, which guide readers to reflect on and apply the
insight gained from the chapter through an activity, and a glossary of
key terms.
In the Introduction, the editor thoroughly describes aims, scope, and
structure of the book. Litosseliti points out the following
distinctive features: (1) The book does not focus on specific areas of
research; rather, each chapter draws on particular areas of research
and specific research studies  as examples or cases for the purpose of
illustration; (2) It focuses on advantages and limitations of
quantitative, qualitative and mixed research methods; (3) The book is
not aimed at examining the different stages of project design, data
collection, and data analysis.
Part I, "Issues" includes five chapters.
Chapter 1, "Why Do We Need Research Questions?", written by Jane
Sunderland argues that research questions are the key to any good
empirical research project. The author distinguishes between research
questions and hypotheses that are more typical of natural sciences
being formulated as statements to be investigated and proved or
disproved through empirical study. Sunderland provides an extensive
taxonomy of research questions differentiating the following groups:
(1) descriptive, explanatory, evaluative; (2) primary/secondary; (3)
main/contributory; (4) overarching/subordinate; (5)
empirical/methodological/theoretical/speculative; (6)
researcher-generated/participant-generated
The author correctly notices that research questions are related to a
broader theoretical framework (p. 27) that underlies any linguistic
investigation. I can add that they also should be mapped to a specific
stage of the project (data collection, data analysis, and so on), and
their correlation with the other research methodologies should be
revealed. Apparently, apart from asking questions, a researcher uses
some other methods; a linguistic research cannot be done based on
questions only. How are research questions related to such widespread
methodologies as, for example, constituency analysis, or componential
analysis, or predication analysis, or distributional analysis? Without
answering this question you cannot get convincing and valuable
results. For me, formulating questions is a supplementary technique
rather than a research method.
Chapter 2, “Ethics in Linguistic Research”, by Christine Mallinson,
provides an overview of the complex and interrelated considerations
that relate to the ethical conduct of research in linguistics. It
reviews statements on research ethics from professional organizations
in linguistics and related disciplines, then focusing on the
development and evolution of ethical codes and models, such as
linguist-focused model, advocacy model, empowering research model,
community-centered and co-construction model, community-based language
research model, and models for decolonizing linguistic research.
Special attention is given to the 'informed consent' principle that
rests on the premise that an individual must voluntarily give
permission to participate in research, with full opportunity to
withdraw from the study at any time and without penalty or
repercussions, and with full understanding of responsibilities and
risks. This principle is highly relevant in experimental linguistics,
psycholinguistics, clinical linguistics, and related fields. The
author discusses the problem of deception – the purposeful misleading
of participants about the nature of a task, so that participants’
knowledge of it does not bias or affect the research outcome. It was a
revelation for me to find out that the common terms 'informant',
'respondent', and 'speaker' have become archaic and should be replaced
with more ethical and inclusive ones, 'consultant,' or 'collaborator';
'language user' or 'communicator'.
In Chapter 3, “Transcription in Linguistics”, Lorenza Mondada
discusses the differences between the focus on content versus form
while transcribing, the consequences of orthographic conventions, the
specificity of multilingual data and data to be translated, the
consequences of transcribing for the treatment of the identity and
categorization of speakers. Conversation analysis is specifically
discussed as an approach, which has developed the practice of
transcription of both language and multimodality in an exemplary way.
The chapter aptly illustrates how even small choices in the
transcription process can have big conceptual, analytical, practical,
and political consequences. The author truly emphasizes the importance
of conversational analysis for video processing, but, in my homespun
opinion, Mondada confuses three different phenomena, namely
transcription, annotation, and transversion. Transcription deals with
representation of oral speech, annotation aims at giving meta
information about linguistic units (POS tags is a typical example),
and transversion involves conversion of paralinguistic elements
(gestures, movements, facial expressions) to text.
Chapter 4, “Quantitative, Qualitative, Mixed, or Holistic Research?
Combining Methods in Linguistic Research”, written by Jo Angouri
focuses on the integration or mixing of quantitative and qualitative
elements in research designs. Her chapter problematizes the notions of
compatibility, transferability, integration, and triangulation of
methodologies. It opens with a brief overview of current issues in
mixed methodologies and then moves on to the issue of triangulation
and the way it is frequently used by researchers. The author discusses
studies in the workplace discourse and workplace sociolinguistics,
paying special attention to the relationship between mixed
methodologies and applicability of research.
I cannot agree with the assertion “it is still quite commonplace for
the two paradigms to be directly contrasted” (p. 105), where the two
paradigms are qualitative and quantitative research approaches.
Nowadays they are not contrasted, being unanimously seen as
complementing each other. The opposition between the two approaches
was, perhaps, typical of early 2000s, and this chapter abounds in
references to the sources published before 2010. The phrase “…over the
last ten years, an increasing volume of work has appeared (e.g.,
Bryman, 2006; Johnson and et al., 2007)” (p. 107) clearly shows that
the chapter was written in around 2010.
The section about the so-called triangulation is more interesting. The
author interprets it as involving the application of two or more
sampling methods, theoretical stances, methodologies. I agree with the
assertion that the use of different methodologies leading to similar
results allows for confident interpretation of the findings and
strengthens the researcher’s conclusions. The problem is that research
results obtained by the application of different methodologies need to
be normalized, and it would be interesting if the author provided a
description of the contemporary normalization techniques and
methodologies.
Chapter 5, “Micro/Macro-linguistic Considerations: Evaluating
Discourse-Analytic Approaches to Text and Talk”, written by Judith
Baxter and Lia Litosseliti explores the question of adopting a
microanalytical perspective (examining the fine grain detail of
linguistic interactions) or a macroanalytical perspective (examining
language as constitutive of social practice) or drawing on elements of
both. It focuses on distinctive features of five discourse-analytic
approaches to text and talk: conversation analysis, interactional
sociolinguistic analysis, discourse analysis, critical discourse
analysis, and feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis. Each
approach is examined in terms of its background, motivation, key
features, applications, and possible strengths and limitations.
I cannot agree with the authors stating that “For Chomsky, the focus
of study was the abstract system: the underlying structure of
language. Linguistic performance—speakers’ actual utterances—was
regarded as disorderly, chaotic, and of no value in offering an
understanding of language as a system” (pp. 132–133) and that “a
significant challenge to Chomsky’s theories was made by the applied
linguist, Dell Hymes (1972), who offered the term "communicative
competence" in deliberate contrast to "linguistic competence.” (p.
133). I find both these statements incorrect. 1) It is common
knowledge that the main point in Chomsky's conception was the notion
of linguistic universals that can be found on any level of a language
system being not limited to its “structure”. 2) It is common knowledge
that the communicative paradigm in linguistics was formed in the works
of Wilem Mathesius in 1930s-1940s who introduced the notions of the
theme, rheme as components of the actual division of the sentence [1].
Subsequent works of J. Fibras, F.Danes, E. Werlich, F. Dressler and
others demonstrated that the actual division of the sentence is
characteristic of all languages thus being a linguistic universal. 3)
Dell Hymes's work complements Chomsky's theory, in no sense being
opposed to it.
My impression is that the authors are not aware of those works, though
the methodology of the actual division of the sentence could have been
successfully applied to the analysis of conversations they discuss
(e.g. p.136, 138).
Part II “Quantitative Perspectives” opens with Chapter 6,
“Quantitative Methods: Concepts, Frameworks, and Issues”, written by
Sebastian M. Rasinger. It starts with a comparison between
quantitative and qualitative methods in general, followed by a
discussion of various research designs that can be used under a
quantitative framework. In the last part, the author takes a closer
look at the design and use of questionnaires as a tool frequently used
in quantitative studies. I cannot assess the content of this chapter
as it concentrates on problems in sociology rather than in
linguistics, “…in social science research, this dichotomy has become
less rigid” (p. 168), as the author writes discussing differences
between quantitative and qualitative methods.
Chapter 7, “Organizing and Processing Your Data: The Nuts and Bolts of
Quantitative Analyses”, written by Erez Levon tells about constructing
hypotheses for quantitative investigation, concentrating then on
chi-squared tests and t-tests that are used in computational and
applied linguistics. The author gives detailed descriptions of the
metrics in simple language that can be easily understood even by high
school students. Levon illustrates the application of the two metrics
with examples taken from the works on applied linguistics. I read this
chapter with interest because in 2016 I published a paper that
assessed efficiency of chi-squared tests as compared with odds ratio
statistical measure [2]. Unfortunately, I found nothing new. I
appreciate the simplicity of the author's language that would be good
for a textbook. But this volume isn't a textbook.
Chapter 8, “Corpus Methods in Linguistics”, was written by Paul Baker
who gives an overview of the field focusing on its definition and
theoretical concepts; corpora types; approaches to building, obtaining
and annotating corpora. The chapter abounds in references to the works
published in 1990s and before 2010 and contains apparently outdated
material and conclusions. The differentiation between corpus-based and
corpus-driven linguists (p. 227) seems artificial as any linguist
conducts research based on some theoretical framework. Discussing the
problem of corpora size the author defines it in words rather than in
tokens, as is the generally accepted practice nowadays. The author
doesn't use the term "token" at all, which seems strange since it is
one of the main concepts in corpus linguistics. I was surprised not to
find a single reference to contemporary neural networks and AI
technologies.
The third part of the book, “Qualitative Perspectives”, comprises
chapters 9–13.
Chapter 9, “Interviews and Focus Groups in Social Science and
Linguistics Research: A Critical Review”, was written by Nigel Edley,
Lia Litosseliti, and Becky Moss. The authors critically examine the
use of interviews and focus groups within social science emphasizing
the role of interviews and focus groups as collaborative or
interactional events that are context-specific and shaped as much by
the interviewer as by those being interviewed. Contrary to its title,
the chapter lacks any linguistic analysis.
Chapter 10, “Linguistic Ethnography”, was written by Karin Tusting who
focuses on the diversity of approaches in linguistic ethnography,
different methods of data collection, correlation between linguistic
and ethnographic components, the benefits and challenges of
micro/macro perspectives, of interdisciplinarity and of different
scale/orientation in linguistic ethnographic work. While reading this
chapter, I felt awkward from the start because the author defined
linguistic ethnography as a “research method” (pp. 289, 291) while I
have always thought ethnography and linguistic ethnography to be
academic disciplines. If ethnography is a method, can we say that
linguistics is also a method? The phrase “linguistics is a method”
sounds unusual to me. The phrases that the author uses later, such as
“linguistics offers ethnography”, “researchers working within
linguistic ethnography believe they offer linguistics” (p. 292)
apparently demonstrate that the author also considers them to be
disciplines. The only point to term them “methods” was to show that
the chapter's content corresponds to the book's title. I wish the
author had given more specific examples of ethnolinguistic research.
Chapter 11, “Digital Discourse Analysis”, was written by Camilla
Vásquez and Yaqian Jiang who provide a short overview of the field.
First they give a definition of digital discourse analysis and then
discuss  some methodological issues such as selecting an appropriate
theoretical framework; data collection, sampling, analysis; and
research ethics. The authors present a case study of a project
exploring how English language teaching microcelebrities use language
and other semiotic resources to construct their identities on a
popular Chinese video-sharing platform.
Chapter 12, “Multimodality: A Guide for Linguists”, was written by
Jeff Bezemer and Carey Jewitt draws attention to the range of
different modes that people use beyond speech and writing and explores
the theoretical and methodological implications of multimodality. The
chapter formulates three premises of multimodality, considers its
relationship with linguistics and concentrates on social semiotics and
online text making. For me, the premises formulated by the authors are
somewhat trivial. It is an obvious fact that meaning is made with the
help of different semiotic resources. The most interesting point in
multimodality is interaction and correlation between these resources
in different environments and contexts, which should be the object of
multimodality investigations.
Chapter 13, “Case Study Research in Applied Linguistics”, was written
by Patricia A. Duff. It defines case study research, discusses its
philosophical underpinnings, and gives a survey of different types of
case studies. I wish the author had given her own example of a case
study, not limiting herself to surveying existing works.
EVALUATION
When a linguist comes across the book entitled “Research Methods in
Linguistics”, he/she naturally expects to find new information on the
methods that have been widely used, such as componential analysis,
distributional analysis, minimal pair analysis, transformational
analysis, etc., as well as on some new methods,  developed in the
light of latest advancements in artificial intelligence. I found
nothing of the sort. The title of the book is misleading and doesn't
reflect its content. This book is not about linguistics, and it is not
about research methods. I believe that a more appropriate title would
be "A Survey of Some Techniques and Principles of Linguistic Adjacent
Investigations". Most of the authors are experts in sociology, and
most of the chapters discuss problems in sociology, rather than in
linguistics. The author of the first chapter in the first five
sections gives numerous examples from sociology and then in the 6th
section admits: “You may have noticed that the research questions…
could largely be addressed through data in which language itself was
not to be analyzed” (p.  22). Chapter 8 focuses on corpus linguistics,
but, as I noted earlier, contains outdated material. The same goes for
Chapter 4. If I were the editor I wouldn’t have accepted these
chapters for publication. I was surprised not to find discussions of
AI technologies and machine learning techniques that have been widely
used for the solution of various problems (for example, automatic text
classification) since the beginning of this century [3]. The book was
not properly proofread, I was surprised to find such unintelligible
spans as "Studiesthatexploittalkfortheinformationitdelivers (p. 75)
and "andstandarddeviations of twosample (p. 201).
REFERENCES
1. Yatsko V.A. Evaluation of the efficiency of chi-square metric. In
Automated documentation and mathematical linguistics, 2016, vol.50,
p173-178. URL:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3103/S0005105516040051
2. Hajičová E., Mathesius V. Functional sentence perspective, and
beyond. In A Centenary of English Studies at Charles University: from
Mathesius to Present-day Linguistics. Prague, 2012. P.49-60 URL:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389752867
3. Danilevsky, M., Qian K., Aharonov R., Katsis Y., Kawas B., and Sen
P. (2020) A Survey of the state of explainable AI for natural language
processing. In: Proceedings of the 1st conference of the Asia-Pacific
Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 10th
International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing, p.
447–459
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Viatcheslav Yatsko, ScD, is a non-affiliated independent researcher.



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