In my current research I use corpora data, data elicited from native speakers and lexicographic sources (e.g. definitions from dictionaries).
I operate in this way because corpora may not include tokens for certain constructions (they may be vanishingly rare), but speakers may judge possible construction examples quickly and efficiently. The two methods can complement one another nicely, I believe.
I also use dictionaries (and grammars) to guide the design of possible constructions. For instance, I was testing the polysemy of prepositions in Italian and French by verifying whether possible definitions can be used to describe their senses in corpora data.
I was thus wondering if the joint use of these methods could be considered as a form methodological triangulation of the kind found in social sciences.
I would like to thank in advance any colleagues who will provide answers, after showing enough patience by reading this not so clear description (!).
Francesco
In the seminal work of Cohen and Manion (2000), triangulation is defined as studying human behaviour from more than one standpoint. Other publications seem to present a similar understanding of triangulation. I think that this definition extends to linguistic behavior and that your methodology fits this description. I for one would accept what you are doing as an instance of methodologically sound triangulation in linguistics. You may want to consult the link below, though:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_triangulation_of_data_in_qualitative_research_Is_it_a_method_of_validating_the_information_collected_through_various_methods
Best wishes,
Łukasz
Hi Francesco,
I also agree that what you are proposing is consistent with the idea of methodological triangulation. More than anything, it is a process of verification that can incorporate different methods. ..sort of like an approach to Michael Agar's strip analysis approach. I have added an encyclopedia entry on triangulation that may help. Jack
Hello everyone,
thank you for you answers. Specifically:
Nagwa Kassem
: yes, that was the first entry I consulted to double-check.Łukasz Bogucki and: thank you for the feedback and the reference; they are indeed much appreciated.
Jack: I must say that your entry with John Tetnowski removed all lingering doubts; thanks for sharing the work!
I must admit that I proposed the question because certain linguists (and the odd reviewer..) seem to be convinced that methodological triangulation is suspicious, as one should only use a single method to collect data. Thanks once more for the feedback!
Best,
Francesco
Glad to be able to help. There is so much misunderstood about qualitative research by those less familiar with it. Linguists, being oriented to description, should typically embrace qualitative methods...but some don't.
Hello Agineska,
excellent suggestion, thank you!
Best,
Francesco
Dear Francesco,
Triangulating should be understood as determining the values for one parameter through at least two different sources or factors. It should not be confused with combining different research methods (i.e., multi method approaches). In this second case, you would be using different kinds of sources or factors to build an image of your goal through different parameters which are thus not "combined" but simply "aligned". The use of the term triangulation is often mistakenly extended to this second case.
You seem to be triangulating in such a way that one source will fill the gaps of the other one
Dear Ricardo,
thank you for your answer. I agree that the use of the two methods is also aimed at filling gaps, since for some constructions the use of a single method for collecting data strikes as very hard to handle (vive la sincerite'!).
I hope that this question is not too banal. Would you perhaps suggest that this specific way of triangulating data could perhaps be contiguous to a multi-method approach?
Thanks again and best,
Francesco
Sure, you may triangulate the position of a mobile phone by measuring the distance between the phone and two different antennas. Also, you might determine whether the use of a noun in a certain text is rare by comparing it on a corpus of similar texts from the same text type and also by determining its value in a reliable word frequency list. That is triangulation. In both cases, both pieces of data are necessary to determine a value (cell phone) or they are redundant and may help you fix some distortions or problems with each way of measuring (noun case).
On the other hand, you may want to describe relevant characteristics of a bilingual population in a study, and decide to apply a psych test and also run a survey to determine their actual, daily language use. In this case, both pieces of data are relevant for your goal, but they do not focus on the same factor but rather contribute to a larger picture on the subjects. In this case, often methods are quite different (test vs survey) and thus such strategies are multi method.
As usual, borders between triangulation and multi method are fuzzy. What is relevant is being aware of whether you are focusing on one factor or many, and whether both interpretation and statistical analyses can be applied in similar ways
mmm... #1 the different *resources* used (eg in your case, corpus, native-speaker elicited intuitions, dictionaries) in research are different from the *methods* used (eg native-speakers may be more or less informed by dictionaries and/or corpora, just as dictionaries may be more or less informed by corpora and native-speaker intuitions)... #2 the main difference i see in the *resources* used is between data obtained from *language in use*, and data obtained from *people's intuitions about language*... #3 The former records *actual* usage, whereas the latter tends to target *possible* usage... #4 “Language users cannot accurately report language usage, even their own” (Sinclair, 1987)?
If you are referencing or contrasting the same corpus from at least 3 different perspectives, that is triangulation, I believe.
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