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remarks that research questions on "the social value of variation" must focus on social meaning in the daily exchanges of "constant local reinterpretation and repositioning." This kind of focus yields research questions aimed at how speakers apply their social knowledge to their language patterns. As Coupland (2007: xii) writes, "I think we need a sociolinguistics of variation for people and for society, as well as (not instead of) a sociolinguistics of variation for language." The research questions of modern sociolinguistics directly address variation for people and society.

Cross-references Working in sociolinguistics requires researchers to learn a wide array of topics. In every chapter of this book, topics come up that are cross-referenced in other chapters. For example, communities of practice are mentioned in this chapter, but Robin Dodsworth gives the full explanation of them in Chapter 17. Readers can probably figure out that communities of practice are groups of people. Scholars also require that groups identified as communities of practice participate in a common activity, thereby sharing some norms for that activity. Yet, this slight definition is not sufficient for researchers, and readers should peruse Dodsworth's definition to get a richer sense of the term. The concept of the community of practice is a methodological tool, and the choice of some tools over others affects the results. Be sure to follow those cross-references for the concepts you choose to use in your research study. It helps to have a full understanding of the important concepts before writing up your final argument.

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questions at the overlap of 447) argues that "by bring­ lose conversation, we might J.lar linguistic elements get purposes by specific speak­ of research questions over identity is created through ot the source, of language Iduding that of individual Ililarly, Eckert (2008: 473)

Conclusion When scholars were first discussing the validity and stability of sociolinguistics, Bright (1966: 11) wrote, "The sociolinguist's task is ... to show the systematic covar­ iance of linguistic structure and social structure - and perhaps even to show a causal relationship in one direction or the other." Since that time, the range of potential research questions has expanded to include practically any study that can incorpo­ rate information from society and language. Some of those research questions focus more on linguistic questions while others focus more on social questions and personal identity. As students design research questions, they should be aware of the breadth of sociolinguistic scholarship and where their specific interests are located.

Quagmires and Troubleshooting • Don't bite off more than you can chew. With all sociolinguistic projects, large goals exist: How do people construct gender through language? How does new language variation spread through a community? With all these kinds of questions, an entire subfield is encompassed. Make your research questions much

20

Kirk Hazen

more specific: How does this particular clique (or person) employ a style (or a

linguistic variable) to demarcate social space?

• Avoid scope-creep. Interesting ideas will develop as you progress in your background reading and then analysis. As you come upon them, take notes, react, and layout plans for future projects, but keep the research question and argu­ ment for your current research project stable. • The devil is in the details. Generalities do not a good research project make. The more detailed your research question is, the better your argument will be.

Tips • Develop a research question and make an argument: There are many interesting topics in sociolinguistics; part of the allure of this scholarship is that ir is fascinat­ ing, even for non-scholars. Yet, research papers are not like documentaries or wildlife tours. Research papers should make a direct argument, and that argument will be guided by a research question. Make the research question an explicit component of the paper. • You must have some knowledge of the nature of the data when planning the research (e.g., tag questions have different types of linguistic constraints than vowels). • Stay specific and simple: Big questions are important to ask, but to answer them, you need detailed, specific questions to form the step-by-step procedure. Your research project might be just a single, small step toward that big question, but that is OK. This method is how human knowledge progresses. Asking how women use language is not answerable with a single research project, but asking how female customers use requests in service encounters at a specific store is. Ask answerable research questions. • Falsifiability versus interpretation: Is the research question to be asked interpretative or is it falsifiable? If the research question is supposed to be falsifiable, then make sure that it can be clearly deemed as false or not. If it is interpretative, then make sure your detailed evidence supports your interpretation. For the uninitiated, the term falsifiable is a confusing term. Novice researchers should think about it in this way: If a hypothesis is falsifiable, it can be proven false through empirical testing. For example, consider these two hypotheses: 1 The lower the social class, the more often speakers will use the -in' of (ING). 2 These speakers construct their gender partly by modifying racial terms. The first question is falsifiable. A study can examine how often speakers use the

alveolar form and correlate those results with social class. The second question is

open to interpretation and is not falsifiable. The researcher would have to build a

case for a particular argument.

Further Reading and Resources Ball, M.J. (ed.) 2010. The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World. New York: Routledge. Johnstone, B. 1999. Qualitative Methods in Sociolinguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Milroy, L. and Gordon, M. 2003. Sociolinguistics: Methods and Interpretation. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Tagliamonte, S. 2012. Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Van Herk, G. 2012. What Is Sociolinguistics? Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Wodak, R., Johnstone, B., and Kerswill, P.E. (eds) 2011. The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics. New York: SAGE.

References

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