Research in

Linguistics
Theresia Dwi
Lidwina Gista 153
Roswita 156
Heribertus Agil 164
 Defininiton
✘ Linguistics is the systematic study of the structure of a
language and the way it is used.
✘ Linguistics is concerned with the nature of language and
communication. It deals both with the study of particular
languages, and the search for general properties common
to all languages or large groups of languages. 

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The subareas of linguistics (concerned with the structure of
language):
Phonetics Morphology Semantics
the study of the production, The structure of words The study of meaning
acoustics and hearing of speech
sounds

Phonology Syntax Pragmatics

the study of speech sounds in The structure of sentences The study of language use
their cognitive aspects

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The subareas of linguistics (concerned with interdisciplinary
branches):
✘ Sociolinguistics
✘ Psycholinguistics
✘ Neurolinguistics
✘ Ethnolinguistics
✘ Historical linguistics
✘ Computational linguistics
✘ Dialectology

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 Types of research question
Primary/secondary Main/contributory
some research questions might It may not be possible to answer
be more important than others, your main research question until
in terms of the focus of the study, an earlier (‘contributory’)
or simply the quality and/or research question has been
quantity of data collected, answered.
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Overaching/subordinate
Two or more research questions
might be grouped hierarchically
under a ‘higher’ one, which
together they address
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 In two or three columns

Empirical/methodological Participant-generated Empirical

While your research questions Some research questions – the
will probably be largely aimed at Why questions above, for
producing empirical findings, you example – may need to be
may also be interested in the speculative, rather than
investigative process itself. empirical, perhaps informed by
the ‘answers’ to empirical
questions (in combination with
your own professional or other
insights).

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How many research
questions?

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✘ most research projects use more than one research
question, often of different types.
✘ The issue is not the number of research questions, but
what is needed

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The steps/procedure of the research in Linguistics
✘ Contextual embedding
- Background and preview
- Linguistic phenomenon
- Literature review
- Preview / explicit
hypothesis
✘ The Results
- Descriptive summary of results
- Inferential statistics
✘ Methods (The Methodology)
- Subjects, corpus, and materials
- Procedure
- Coding
✘ Discussion/The Analysis
- Provide a short summary of
results
- Theoretical implications
- Future direction of research
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 Research methods in linguistics

✘ Quantitative
✘ Qualitative
✘ Corpus research
✘ Ethno linguistic

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 Quantitative in Linguistic

✘ How many there is/are on a particular characteristic/item,

✘ Use to compare a large number of data using easy
indicator,
✘ analyzed using statistical method

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 Upgrade Your Linguistic Research!

✘ What Linguistic branch?

✘ Formulate the research questions
✘ Research elements
✘ One method or mixed method?
✘ Core of each method in Linguistic
✘ Warning!

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 What linguistic branch?

✘ Structure?
✘ Interdisciplinary of Linguistic?

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 Formulate the research questions

✘ Explicit questions.
✘ Suggestions
✘ Replicate someone else’s work
✘ ‘niche’ in other research

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 Research Elements

✘ Empirical? Methodological? Theoretical? Focus!

✘ Grey area of research.
✘ Tools to obtain data.

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 One Method or Mixed Method?

One Method Mixed Method

Process 1 type of data only Process >2 types of data

The reliability of the result can be Has higher reliability because both
doubted method support each other
More limited Wider

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 Core of each method in linguistic

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 Warning!

✘ Over general question.

○ Ex: What are the differences between chicken egg and
duck egg when they are cooked?
✘ Unstructured research design.

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 thanks!
Any questions?

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