Interpret Inquiry in Lang Stud

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

In this course, students will explore research methods from an interpretivist epistemological perspective and carry out a research project using this approach. The course will begin with an introduction to positivism. Positivism is the name critics have given to the “common sense” epistemology that is dominant within linguistics and language studies. This epistemology asserts, among other things, that research should be objective, neutral, or apolitical. Students will explore conceptual and ethical critiques of positivistic research. After reading and discussing critiques of positivism, the course will introduce students to alternative epistemologies that have long traditions both in language studies and in other related areas of scholarship. Students will engage with methodological approaches from well-established interpretivist paradigms such as feminist, queer, critical race, and/or critical disability scholarship. They will then explore how interpretivist scholars collect and analyze qualitative data using three techniques: interviewing, participant observation, and document analysis. Students will learn to undertake interviewing, participant observation, and document analysis from an interpretivist perspective. Finally, students will explore the way interpretivist scholars write about research, comparing it with the textual practices of positivistic scholarship. They will write up a report of their own interpretivist research project and workshop it with peers and the instructor.