Data Collection and Analysis in Sociolinguistics

Data Collection and Analysis in SociolinguisticsPractical elements for research methods in sociolinguistics

Enrico GiaiBA in Translating and InterpretingMA Student in Translation Studies Turin University

Email: [email protected]

Turin, 07-08 April 2014

2 Monday, April 7th Main topics Sociolinguistics: basic notions

Collecting data

Tool for data analysis

Descriptive statistics: basic notions

Example: using Excel for basic statistics

3 Sociolinguistics and sociology of language

Sociolinguistics Effects of society on language

use

Language variation & change (variationist sociolinguistics)

Sociology of language Effects of language use on

society

Who speaks what language to whom and when

4 Quantitative and qualitative approaches

New theory

Data analysis

Theory test

Quantitative approach

Qualitative approach

Data collection

Data analysis

New theory

5 Quantitative sociolinguistics

Quantitative analyses are all about counting something […]. In order for something to be counted, two conditions are normally considered to be necessary: (a) what you want to count must itself be ‘countable’ (i.e. quantifiable), and (b) what you want to count must have the potential to be variable (i.e. be able to change).

Levon(2010:68)

6 Interviews: how to 1st type: Structured

Guided by set of questions on the topic Standardised & replicable Low degree of digression from the topic Yes/No, True/False, closed questions

2nd type: Unstructured Free flowing Non standardised Higher degree of digression from the topic W-, open questions

3rd type: Semi-structured Mix

7 Interviews: pro & con

Pros Immediate results Face-to-face Prosodic features of the

language can be analysed Elements of culture and self

identity can be grasped

Cons Possible bias and manipulations Problems with generalisation

interviewees/society Expensive in terms of time and

money Must be transcribed

The transcription process can be made easier by means of computer programmes (e.g. ELAN)

8 Interviews: analysis

Content analysis Discourse analysis Relational analysis

Three main steps: Noticing concepts Collecting examples Analysing examples to find commonalities

9 Questionnaires and language surveys: how to 1st type: desctiprive questionnaires

How many people participate in a certain behaviour 2nd type: analytical questionnaires

Theory building and testing Questionnaire admininistration

Self-administration Interview type situation

Types of questions (level of measurement) Category type questions Ordinal type questions Continuous questions

10 Questionnaires and language surveys: pro&con

Pros Useful for surveying people from

different locations Not expensive Perfectly standardised &

replicable Easy to compare with other

questionnaires

Cons Not face-to-face Low response rate No certainty whether:

Who filled it out When was filled out In what order was filled out How much time did it take to fill

it out

The analysis of questionnaires can be made easier by means of computer programmes (e.g. Excel)

11 Questionnaires and language surveys: analysis

Code the questions Transfer the information Establish strategy for analysis Summarise the responses

Category and ordinal questions: frequency, charts Continuous questions: mean, median, mode, distribution

Univariate vs bivariate vs multivariate analysis

12 Web: how to

Using the Web as a source for corpora

Tools: Google Advanced Search (e.g. http://www.google.com/advanced_search) WebCorp (e.g. http://www.webcorp.org.uk/live/) Twitter (e.g. https://twitter.com/search-advanced) Facebook (e.g. https://www.facebook.com/imatitikua.kokolet/about)

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

http://www.webcorp.org.uk/live/

http://www.webcorp.org.uk/live/

https://twitter.com/search-advanced

https://twitter.com/search-advanced

https://www.facebook.com/imatitikua.kokolet/about

https://www.facebook.com/imatitikua.kokolet/about

13 ELAN ELAN: freely downloadable (http

://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/download/) For audio and video interviews Helps the user to transcribe audio and/or video texts Transcription process in two steps

Segmentation phase Transcription phase

http://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/download/



14 ELAN: the basics (1)Main page

New transcription

15 ELAN: the basics (2)

Grid selection and main controls

Sound spectrum

Tier bar

16 ELAN for Interview Transcription – An example Interview with a member of the Nigerian community in Turin, Italy Recorded file audio in .wav format Number of speakers

1 interviewer 1 interviewee

Transcription work step-by-step Create a tier for each speaker Segment the utterances Annotate the utterances Save the transcription

17 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Create New Tiers (1) “Tier” → “Add new tier” One for each participant to

the interview Add Tier Name Write your name in the

“Annotator” blank space

18 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Create New Tiers (2) The tiers referred to the two participants should appear

19 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Segment the Utterances (1)

“Options” → “Segmentation mode”

Double click the tier to select the speaker

Hit the Enter key once to open a new segment. Another time to close it

Click on the play button to start and stop the file

20 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Segment the Utterances (2)

21 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Annotate the segments (1) “Option”→ “Annotation mode” Double-click the segment you want to transcribe and write the utterance

down

22 ELAN for Interview Transcription – Annotate the segments (2)

23 ELAN for Interview Transcription – What now? (1)

You can Export it as an interlinear text, to have a Word version of the transcription

24 ELAN for Interview Transcription – What now? (2)

You can Export it as a Tab-delimited

text, which can be transferred to an Excel document and analysed

25 PRAAT

PRAAT: freely downloadable (http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html)

For speech analysis

Source: audio files (.wav and .mp3)

Annotation: Phonetic Orthographic

http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html

26 PRAAT – Main page

27 PRAAT – An example (1)Open > Read from file

Example: interview with a Nigerian immigrant

28 PRAAT – An example (2)Annotate > To TextGrid

29 PRAAT – An example (3)Define number and name of tier(s) for each speaker(s)

30 PRAAT – An example (4)Select both > View&Edit

31 PRAAT – An example (5)

32 PRAAT – An example (6)Mouse on spectrogram > select passage (Tab=play)

33PRAAT – An example (7)

Click on spectrogram>click on circle: delimitate tag

34 PRAAT – An example (8)Enter key > annotate

35 WordSmith Tools Wordsmith Tools: freely downloadable (

http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/)

For concordances & word lists

Source: corpus/linguistic database in .txt format Example: see next slide

http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/

http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/

36 WordSmith Tools – Excel to .txt

Source .txt file

37 WordSmith Tools – Main page

38 WordSmith Tools – An example (1)

43 Basic statistics notions Average/aritmethic mean

Median

Mode

Frequency

Minimum values

Maximum values

Range/standard deviation

44 Microsoft Excel (1)


Font selection and customisation;cell borders

Alignment Merge cells Insert/delete rows/columns Find


Rows

Columns

Cell: A1


Right click>’Formato celle’

Insert text: double click on cell

48 Microsoft Excel – Basic Notions Formulae are inserted clicking on the “Inserisci funzioni” button, or

typing them in a cell

Rules Preceded by an equal sign; Use of coordinates;

Types of formulae: Arithmetic Statistical Logical

49 Microsoft Excel – Entering data

Collect data using questionnaires or language surveys

Codify your questions and answers

Arrange them Row 1: questions. Each column represents a question Row 2 to ∞: answers

50 Microsoft Excel – Coding a questionnaire/language survey Coding your responses/data

Allocating a number to the answers of each question Coding category type questions

e.g. gender (M=1; F=2) Coding ordinal questions

e.g. age brackets (1=15-20; 2=21-25; …) Coding continuous questions

Already numbers

51 Using Excel for basic descriptive statistics

A language survey on the linguistic repertoire of Filipino immigrants in Turin

Features: 122 questioned people so far (Dec 2013)

Heterogeneous population

Questionnaires collected in Microsoft Excel

Linguistic and ethnographic data

52 Example of language survey

Linguistic data Mother tongue Known languages Language use in different

contexts Code-switching

Ethnographic data Age Gender Education Occupation Length of stay in Italy

53 Excel worksheet layout (1)

Layout Column A to BB, row 1 (A1:BB1)

Questions (“Factor Groups”)

Column A, row 2 to 123 (A2:A123) Speakers’ ID

Column B to BB, row 2 to 123 (B2:BB123) Answers

54Excel worksheet layout (2)

55 Notations

N/A: data not available #: empty cell BC: blue collars PC: pink collars WC: white collars Length of stay in Italy expressed in months Age and school attendance expressed in years N.B.

Each cell contains only 1 piece of information

56

CodingLanguages Language use Occupation English varieties Y/N Gender

N/A 0 N/A 0 N/A 0 N/A 0 N/A 0 N/A 0Arabic 1 English 1 BC 1 American

English 1 Yes 1 M 1

Bicol 2 Italian 2 PC 2 British English 2 No 2 F 2Bisaya 3 Tagalog 3 WC 3 Standard English3Cebuano 4 English/Italian 4 Unemployed 4Chinese 5 English/Tagalog 5Danish 6 Italian/Tagalog 6English 7 No 7Filipino dialect 8 Ita/Tag/English 8French 9 French 9German 10 Ilocano 10Ilocano 11 Other 11Ilonggo 12Italian 13Kapampangan 14Norsk 15Pampango 16Pangasinan 17Piedmontese dialect18Spanish 19Tagalog 20Vietnamese 21

57 Language survey analysis with Microsoft Excel Descriptive statistics Most useful formulae for descriptive statistics in Excel

Average: “=MEDIA()” Median: “=MEDIANA()” Mode: “=MODA()” Minimum point: “=MIN()” Maximum point: “=MAX()”

Creation of charts and graphs Bar graphs Pie charts

58 What can we analyse using descriptive statistics formulae? Age Length of stay in Italy School attendance Number of known languages Number of languages used at school (PH) Number of languages used at work (PH) Number of languages used at work (IT) Number of languages used with family (PH) Number of languages used with family (IT) Number of languages used with friends (PH) Number of languages used with friends (IT)

59 What can we draw graphs and charts of? (1) Gender Occupation (PH) Occupation (IT) Nationality of friends (IT) Contacts with Filipinos Mother tongue Other known languages

60 What can we draw graphs and charts of? (2) Languages used at school Languages used at school (PH) Languages used at work (PH) Languages used at work (IT) Languages used with family (PH) Languages used with family (IT) Languages used with friends (PH) Languages used with friends (IT) Code-switching Use of Italian in the Philippines

61 Layout of the analysis table (1) See analysis worksheet Column A, row 2 to 206 (A2:A206)

Questions (“Factor Groups”) Column B, row 2 to 206 (B2:B206)

Possible answers Type of calculus

Column C, row 2 to 206 (C2:C206) Number of occurrences Results

Column D, row 2 to 206 (D2:D206) Percentage values

Column E, row 2 to 206 (E2:E206) Total amount of factor group

62Layout of the analysis table (2)

63 Number of known languages (1)Number of known languages: (L2:L123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Average number of known languages in C2

=MEDIA(Questionnaire!$L$2:$L$123) Median number of known languages in C3

=MEDIANA(Questionnaire!$L$2:$L$123) Mode number of known languages in C4

=MODA(Questionnaire!$L$2:$L$123) Minimum value of number of known languages in C5

=MIN(Questionnaire!$L$2:$L$123) Maximum value of number of known languages C6

=MAX(Questionnaire!$L$2:$L$123)

64 Number of known languages (2)

65 Mother tongue (1)Mother tongue: (M2:M123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Number of N/A in C7

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”0”) Number of Italian mother tongue people in C8

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”13”) Number of English mother tongue people in C9

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”7”) Number of Tagalog mother tongue people in C10

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”20”) Number of Cebuano mother tongue people in C11

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”4”) Number of Ilocano mother tongue people in C12

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”11”)

66 Mother tongue (2)Mother tongue: (M2:M123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Number of Bisaya mother tongue people in C13

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”3”) Number of Kapampangan mother tongue people in C14

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”14”) Number of Pampango mother tongue people in C15

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$M$2:$M$123;”16”) Percentage of C7 to C15

In D7: =(C7*100)/122 click on the lower right corner of D7 and drag it down to D15

N.B. Write cell name instead of language and drag it down

67 Mother tongue (3) Total amount of the Mother tongue factor group

=SOMMA(C7:C15)

Code

N/A 0Arabic 1Bicol 2Bisaya 3Cebuano 4Chinese 5Danish 6English 7Filipino dialect 8French 9German 10Ilocano 11Ilonggo 12Italian 13Kapampangan 14Norsk 15Pampango 16Pangasinan 17Piedmontese dialect18Spanish 19Tagalog 20

68 Other known languages (1)Other known languages (apart from Mother tongue): (N2:S123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Number of Italian speakers in C16

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$N$2:$S$123;B16)

Click on the lower right corner of C16 and drag it down to C36 to get all the results

Percentage of C16 to C36 click on the lower right corner of D15 and drag it down to D36

69 Other known languages (2) Code


70 Number of languages used at school PH (1)

Number of languages used at school: (T2:T123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Average number of languages used at school in C37

=MEDIA(Questionnaire!T2:T123) Median number of languages used at school in C38

=MEDIANA(Questionnaire!T2:T123) Mode number of languages used at school in C39

=MODA(Questionnaire!T2:T123) Minimum value of number of languages used at school in C40

=MIN(Questionnaire!T2:T123) Maximum value of number of languages used at school C41

=MAX(Questionnaire!T2:T123)

71 Number of languages used at school PH (2)

72 Languages used at school PH (1)Languages used at school PH: (U2:W123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) Number of Italian in C42

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$U$2:$W$123;B48) Click on the lower right corner of C42 and drag it down to C53 to get

all the results

Percentage of C42 in D42 =(C42*100)/122 click on the lower right corner of D42 and drag it down to D53

73 Languages used at school PH (2) Code


74Number of languages used at work PH/IT Number of languages used at work PH: (X2:X123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet Number of languages used at work IT: (AB2:AB123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

75Languages used at work PH/IT (1)

Languages used at work PH: (Y2:AA123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code



Languages used at work IT: (AC2:AF123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code

N/A 0Arabic 1Bicol 2Bisaya 3Cebuano 4Chinese 5Danish 6English 7Filipino dialect 8French 9German 10Ilocano 11Ilonggo 12Italian 13Kapampangan 14Norsk 15Pampango 16Pangasinan 17Piedmontese dialect 18Spanish 19Tagalog 20

77Languages used at work PH/IT (3) Bar graph

Code

N/A 0Bisaya 3English 7Ilocano 11Italian 13Kapampangan 14Tagalog 20


Bar graphCode


79 Number of languages used with family PH/IT Number of languages used with family PH: (AG2:AG123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheetNumber of languages used with family IT: (AK2:AK123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

80Languages used with family PH/IT (1)

Languages used with family PH: (AH2:AJ123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code



Languages used with family IT: (AL2:AO123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code

N/A 0Arabic 1Bicol 2Bisaya 3Cebuano 4Chinese 5Danish 6English 7Filipino dialect 8French 9German 10Ilocano 11Ilonggo 12Italian 13Kapampangan 14Norsk 15Pampango 16Pangasinan 17Piedmontese dialect 18Spanish 19Tagalog 20


Code


83Number of languages used with friends PH/IT Number of languages used with friends PH: (AP2:AP123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheetNumber of languages used with friends IT: (AT2:AT123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

84Languages used with friends PH/IT (1)

Languages used with friends PH: (AQ2:AS123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code



Languages used with friends IT: (AU2:AW123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code



Code


87 Code-switching (1) Code-switching: (AX2:AX123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet ($: fixed reference) 0 in C156

=CONTA.SE(Questionnaire!$AX$2:$AX$103;B156) 1 and 2 in C157 and C158

Drag C156 down

Code

N/A 0Yes 1No 2

88 Code-switching (2)

Code

N/A 0Yes 1No 2

89Language use – Television (1)Languages used to watch TV: (AY2:AY123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code


90 Language use – Television (2)

Code

N/A 0 Danish 6Arabic 1 English 7

Bicol 2 Filipino dialect 8

Bisaya 3 French 9Cebuano 4 German 10Chinese 5 Ilocano 11

91Language use – Books (1)

Languages used to read books: (AZ2:AZ123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code


92 Language use – Books (2)

Code




93Language use – Dreams (1)Languages used to dream: (AA2:AA123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code


94 Language use – Dreams (2)

Code




95Language use – Thoughts(1)Languages used to think: (AB2:AB123) in the “Questionnaire” worksheet

Code


96 Language use – Thoughts (2)

Code




97 Language use: to sum up (1)

Code TV Books Dreams Thoughts0 23,00 42,00 48,00 46,001 6,00 10,00 4,00 6,002 62,00 56,00 23,00 30,003 5,00 4,00 16,00 0,004 17,00 8,00 11,00 15,005 1,00 1,00 2,00 0,006 4,00 1,00 7,00 0,007 0,00 0,00 0,00 12,008 4,00 0,00 0,00 0,009 0,00 0,00 2,00 1,00

10 0,00 0,00 0,00 3,0011 0,00 0,00 9,00 9,00

Code

N/A 0Arabic 1Bicol 2Bisaya 3Cebuano 4Chinese 5Danish 6English 7Filipino dialect 8French 9German 10Ilocano 11

98 Language use: to sum up (2)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 110

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

23

6

62

5

17

14

04

0 0 0

42

10

56

48

1 1 0 0 0 0 0

48

4

23

1611

27

0 0 2 0

9

46

6

30

0

15

0 0

12

0 1 39

Language use

TV Books Dreams Thoughts

99 Results (1)Ethnographic data Men and women are equally partitioned Average age: ca 33 yrs Average length of stay: ca 15 months Average education: ca 12 years (medium/high) Occupation: more PC than BC WC once in Italy; same unemployment rate Almost all friends in Italy are Filipinos Frequent contacts with Filipinos living in the PH once in Italy

100 Results (2)Linguistic data Average known languages: ca 4 Most common mother tongue: Tagalog Most common known languages: English and Italian Most common language at work PH: English and Tagalog Most common language at work IT: Italian and English Most common language with family PH: Tagalog and English Most common language with family IT: Tagalog and Italian Most common language used with friends PH: Tagalog and English Most common language used with friends IT: Tagalog and Italian Code switching: Yes in more than ¾ of cases

101 Results (3)Linguistic data Most commonly used languages to watch TV: Italian and English Most commonly used languages to read books: Italian and English Most commonly used languages to dream: Italian and Tagalog Most commonly used languages to think: Italian and Tagalog

102 What now?Data analysis and hypothesisCan we say that the high rate of code-switching is influenced by ethnographic and/or linguistic factors?

Multivariate analysis and Rbrul

103References

BLOOMER A. & WRAY A., 2006, Projects in Linguistics 2nd Edition, Hodder Arnold, London and New York. EDLEY N. & LITOSSELITI L., 2010, "Contemplating Interviews and Focus Groups", in Litosseliti L. (ed.), Research Methods in Linguistics, Continuum, London and New York: 155-179HON, K., 2013, “An Introduction to Statistics”, retrievable from the World Wide Web: http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/LaTeX/Examples/statistics_firstfive.pdfLEVON, E., 2010, "Organizing and Processing Your Data: The Nuts and Bolts of Quantitative Analyses", in Litosseliti L. (ed.), Research Methods in Linguistics, Continuum, London and New York: 68-92.

See the e-book in my blog

104

Thank you

Data Collection and Analysis in Sociolinguistics

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