Section Five

Methodology and Data Collection

In an attempt to capture the spontaneous fluent speech associated with a variety’s vernacular, data collection on Mersea was achieved through informal interviews lasting on average between one and a half and two hours.  The benefits of this approach, as identified by Milroy and Gordon (2003:57-58), are that interview protocols are more flexible due to the lack of a pre-determined structure associated with survey questionnaires and that the interviewer, if successful, is able to elicit greater, more extended stretches of conversational (unscripted) speech.   However, as is often the case in sociolinguistic studies, the effectiveness of such interviews, regarding the reduction of effects caused by the observer’s paradox, is reliant not only upon the researcher’s position within the community but also the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee.  The observer’s paradox when associated with sociolinguistics, questions how linguists can obtain the naturalistic data required for speech analysis through observation of interview, given that the presence of the linguist will influence the way in which people talk (Crystal 2003:323).

With respect to Mersea Island, both fieldworkers (SG and JA) are native islanders and therefore some community ties were already established, reducing the effects of the paradox.  SG was able to select friends and family members who fit the criterion of a native islander and therefore, participants were familiar with the interviewer and less susceptible to any outside influence.

Conversely, JA adopted the snowball technique in acquiring informants from the older generation.  This approach, as described by Milroy and Gordon, “utilises the social networks of participants in the study to recruit potential new participants” (2003:32).  Two significant advantages of this approach are that:

1. it increases the chances of finding willing participants, who are thus more likely to cooperate in an interview situation

and

2. once the interview has commenced, conversation can be immediately generated by enquiring after the relationship between the subject and the person who recommended them.

This technique therefore ensures that the interviewer is not regarded as an outsider and can establish ‘friend-of-friend’ status which was utilised to great effect by, in particular, Milroy (1980) during the study of three Belfast communities.

The Informants

Sixteen informants across two generations of islanders were used in an attempt to capture the distribution of yod-dropping in apparent time.  The tracing of change in apparent time refers to “the distribution of linguistic variables across age levels” (Labov 1994a:45-46) at a given point of time.  This contrasts with studies conducted in real time, which analyse and compare data from multiple points in time.  Apparent time studies are useful in providing a snapshot of a community’s current linguistic situation.  However, with respect to some sociolinguistic variables, caution must be taken to ensure data patterns are the result of change in progress and not simply characteristics of age-grading.

(5.1)

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