Research Methods I: Understanding Original Research in Linguistics

Course content

This seminar provides students with essential knowledge and skills they need to write a BA thesis in linguistics. The course focusses on how to understand and produce (quantitative) research in linguistics. It consists of three major parts. First, you learn about how to find and prepare a suitable topic for a BA thesis. We will describe the basics of the finding and reading relevant literature, finding a research question, developing hypotheses, choosing an appropriate research design, writing a research proposal. Second, we turn to data collection and coding as well as analyzing empirical data by means of descriptive statistics and statistical hypothesis testing. You will apply your newly acquired statistical knowledge in hands-on exercises in the software packages Excel® and JASP®. Third, we consider essentials of writing a BA thesis. We address key issues such as organizing your thesis, reporting results and working with references. All topics will be illustrated with authentic research (data) from BA theses in psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics.