ABSTRACT

The importance of conducting Linguistic (N)ethnography (LE) among language users has been highlighted by sociolinguists. LE has the power to show effective documentary evidence about sociolinguistic realities that are more precise than those that either ethnography or linguistics alone can offer. The significance of research methods embedded within LE such as 'open ethnographic observation' and 'semi-structured interview' has been widely acknowledged by ethnographers to inform the analysis of language, where the researcher may directly get involved in all the social practices under investigation. According to A. Creese, LE may also 'benefit from the analytical frameworks provided by linguistics, while linguistics can benefit from the processes of reflexive sensitivity required in ethnographic work. Understanding language drawing on LE may therefore 'open linguistics up,' allowing 'an improved explanatory warrant for statements about language on the basis of systematically collected data about a real social and cultural context'.