Ender Andrea, Leemann Adrian, Wälchli Bernhard (eds.). Methods in Contemporary Linguistics

De Gruyter Mouton, 2012. — xiii, 536 p. — (Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs [TiLSM] 247). — ISBN: 978-3-11- 027568-1.Linguistics is all about the study of language. However, in as much as linguists pose different questions about language, they also engage in different processes of inquiry about their subject of study. Linguistic analyses are always shaped by the kind of data used and the assumptions underlying their interpretation, regardless of whether or not this is made explicit by the researcher. This kind of “linguistic relativity” is different from the well known and much discussed Whorfian relativity principle, which says that “all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar”. The “second linguistic relativity principle” alluded to here is not about how language shapes thought and perception, but rather about how linguistic data and methods in linguistics shape linguistic theory.A volume that focuses on methods and methodological aspects in a variety of linguistic subfields can promote a more profound understanding of contemporary linguistics and the diversity in the scientific study of language. At once, a thorough description of how data has been gathered and analysed illustrates that methodological decisions often cannot be separated from questions of linguistic theory.Core domains: From phonetics to pragmatics
Methodological reflections on the phonetic–phonological continuum, illustrated on the prosody of Swiss German dialects
Phonological typology, rhythm types and the phonetics-phonology interface. A methodological overview and three case studies on Italo-Romance dialects
Indirect measurement in morphological typology
Is a syntactic dialectology possible? Contributions from Swiss German
Methods for modalities
The making of a festschrift, is it a ritual?
Cross-linguistic and language internal diversity
Language description and linguistic typology
Multiple languages and multiple methods: Qualitative and quantitative ways of tapping into the multilingual repertoire
Koineization and cake baking: Reflections on methods in dialect contact research
Variation in a second language as a methodological challenge: Knowledge and use of relative clauses
Polish tea is Czech coffee: advantages and pitfalls in using a parallel corpus in linguistic research
Dynamic language
Historical text analysis: Underlying parameters and methodological procedures
Using methods of historical linguistics in Indo-European and Tibetan
Etyma, shouldered adzes and molecular variants
Experimental methods in psycholinguistics
Writing
Coming to grips with dynamics and complexity. Methodological challenges to real-life writing research
Evolving methods for written representations of signed languages of the Deaf
Language, Space and Society
Crossing perspectives on onomastic methodology: Reflections on fieldwork in place name research. An essay in interactional onomastics
Does the territoriality principle work in practice? The principle’s applicability to the Romansh area in the Swiss Canton of Grisons
Procedures of methodological triangulation in sociolinguistic research on multilingualism