ABSTRACT

Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics provides an accessible introduction to research methods for undergraduates undertaking research for the first time. Employing a task-based approach, the authors demonstrate key methods through a series of worked examples, allowing students to take a learn-by-doing approach and making quantitative methods less daunting for the novice researcher.

Key features include:

  • Chapters framed around real research questions, walking the student step-by-step through the various methods;
  • Guidance on how to design your own research project;
  • Basic questions and answers that every new researcher needs to know;
  • A comprehensive glossary that makes the most technical of terms clear to readers;
  • Coverage of different statistical packages including R and SPSS.

Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics is essential reading for all students undertaking degrees in linguistics and English language studies.

part I|49 pages

Basic statistical ideas

part II|86 pages

Asking and answering quantitative questions

chapter 3|12 pages

Survey of the sexiness of Klingon

Is your data normal?

chapter 4|11 pages

Who speaks Low German with their children?

Visualisation – describing words with pictures

chapter 5|14 pages

Whose English uses more present perfect?

Comparison of two groups where the data is not normally distributed – Mann-Whitney U test

chapter 7|10 pages

Do letter writers tend to use nouns and verbs together?

Scatterplots and correlation of linear data

chapter 8|12 pages

Does the use of pronouns differ between two academic disciplines?

Using t-tests to compare two groups

chapter 9|8 pages

Do different academic subjects have distinctive patterns of pronoun use?

Comparison between three or more groups – one-way ANOVA

chapter 10|4 pages

Asking and answering quantitative questions

Conclusions