Language Analysis in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Are you a doctoral student in the humanities and social sciences? Does language play an important role in your research? Do you need to interpret spoken or written language data for your dissertation? Or would you just like to find out how this is done? Then this course is for you.
The course offers an introduction to methods of language analysis. It trains you to systematically collect and analyse language data, and to target your approach to your particular research objectives. We discuss the design of data collection instruments (e.g., interview protocols, questionnaires) and collection practices (e.g., recording of audio and video conversations, creation of small targeted language corpora).
Different methods for the analysis of language data are illustrated (such as conversation and discourse analysis, corpus analysis, content analysis), and their suitability for different data types and research questions are explored. Hands-on experience allows you to test a number of practical tools for language analysis, and ethical and legal aspects in relation to language analysis are examined.