Empirical insights for experimental grammar from sociophonology (1/4)

Jane Stuart-Smith (Glasgow University)
Ecologies of language data

This seminar will focus on dimensions of linguistic data collection, specifically, ‘the lab’, ‘the field’ and the grey/green areas between these constructs and bundles of situational and ideological contexts. It will consider questions such as: what is ecologically-valid language data? Is data collected in a lab not ecologically valid? Can we separate ‘the field’ from ‘the lab’? Are some kinds of data more ‘authentic’ than others? Evidence will include the impact of style, context, and elicitation task, notions of ‘naturalness’ for linguistic behaviours, the Observer’s Paradox, and recording/collection modality (e.g. face-to-face vs online) on data collection and hence on linguistic theory.