Linguistic investigation methods
Systematic approaches to collecting and analysing language data: observational studies (recording naturally occurring speech), surveys/questionnaires, interviews, experimental methods, and corpus analysis.
Real World
Sociolinguist William Labov used structured sociolinguistic interviews across New York City social classes in the 1960s to measure rhoticity variation — his methodology became a template still cited in A-level linguistics today.
Exam Focus
Justify your chosen method in the methodology section by explicitly naming one limitation and explaining why it does not invalidate your findings.
How well did you know this?