Presentation Title

Author

What Methods and ethics of Inquiry are used in linguistics research?

Xander Johnson

Lin 211 Spotlight Lecture

March 3, 2025

Back to the First Spotlight Lecture

Research Question:

“Where do people have different words for a carbonated beverage?”

With the people around you, brainstorm some ways that you can go about answering this question for 2-3 minutes. Be specific! “Ask them” is not enough detail – who are you asking, how are you asking them, etc.?

Milgram Experiment

Please continue.

Could you please continue?

Continue.

Will you continue?

https://youtu.be/Kzd6Ew3TraA

Linguistic extensions

Echo Question 1.

Was this an ethical experiment?

(Y/N)

As conducted, is unethical . Why?

Psychological harm for participants

No clear way to end the experiment

Insufficient or absent debrief after deception

William Labov’s Sociolinguistic Interview

From https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474472968-006/pdf?licenseType=restricted

https://soundcloud.com/xander-470783300/labov-dod-recreation

Back to linguistics

Echo Question 2.

What are some of the problems with this question? Why did the interviewee sometimes end the interview early?

Short answer

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/how-did-a-self-taught-linguist-come-to-own-an-indigenous-language

What do you need for ethical research?

Informed Consent or permission to use existing data

A plan for storing and future use of the data

Minimal risk of harm to participants or _ _ mitigation strategies if unavoidable

Only collect the information you need to answer your question(s)

Accountability and oversight

We’ve seen lots of unethical ways to do research. So

Informed Consent

I have a few questions to ask you about how you feel about Southern accents. The interview will be audio recorded and should take no more than 20 minutes. Your data will be confidential, and the data will be anonymized prior to storage. The data may be used in future experiments. You may withdraw your consent at any time. Do you agree to participate in the research?

Permission to Use Existing Data

Anything that has been published is generally acceptable for academic use, unless it contains other restrictions or could cause harm to private individuals .

Data Plan

Only Collect Necessary Information

Echo Question 3.

What demographic information would you need from survey participants to answer the question “Where do people have different words for a carbonated beverage?”

Select Multiple

Name

Gender

Age

Home County

Home State

Race

Marital Status

Sexual Orientation

Address

William Labov’s Sociolinguistic Interview

From https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474472968-006/pdf?licenseType=restricted

Can you think of an experiment where this would be a necessary question?

What steps might you to take to protect participants?

Back to linguistics

Accountability and Oversight

https://youtu.be/QwhK-iEyXYA

Methods:How do we answer questions?

This video is specifically for sociology, but we use the same processes in Linguistics!

Wednesday, March 5

Language in the World

How do kids learn to talk?

Recitation on Friday (Quiz 7)

Catch-up Participation Quiz 3!

Keep working on Observation Notes 4!