Linguistic research methods

Method - a system of research techniques and procedures that promote targeted study of something from a certain point of view. It is impossible to study all objects of reality with the help of one method. Therefore, the question is how many methods exist and how to classify them.

Method - a system with its inherent structure. The method as a system consists of its theories, a set of research methods, the content of which is determined by the linguistic foundations of the method and a set of technical methods and procedures.

The theoretical basis of the method should be based on the knowledge of the real, and not the fictional properties of the object. The application of any method begins with the reception.

Reception - a specific action, operation, operating language material. Scientific methods - comparison, identification of differential signs. Techniques - note-taking of the studied literature, entering on the cards, creating questionnaires.

Any tricks are not used chaotically. They obey a certain technique (sequence of receptions). In modern science, methods are classified depending on what purpose they pursue (language description, language definition among others in the world, etc.).

Therefore, the following methods are distinguished: descriptive, taxonomic, linguogenetic, typological, and a number of other methods.

1. Descriptive method. Purpose: the establishment of facts and phenomena, their inclusion in the everyday life of scientific research. Receptions: observation with an intuitive selection of linguistic units and mixing them together. The first grammars used this method.

The descriptive method is used in field linguistics - it describes languages ​​that do not have their own script. Notable researchers: Wharf, Bloomfield, Baudouin de Courtenay.

Very close to descriptive - the method of linguistic experiment (experimental research). Experiment is a form of scientific experience, which is a systematic and reproducible observation of an object. Separate parties and connections of this object with others are revealed in the process of controlled trial actions of an observer. One of the first proposed to use the experiment Shcherba. In his work, he identifies 3 types of experiment:

a) experiment as a way to verify the adequacy of the theoretical constructs of the facts of the language;

b) you can arbitrarily combine words and systematically replacing one with another, changing the order and intonation, to observe the resulting differences;

c) analyze negative linguistic material (misuse of words) to see shifts.

All experiments are divided into technical and linguistic proper (glossed kuzdra, associative experiment).

2. Structural or taxonomic methods (taxonomy - a set of principles and rules for the classification of linguistic objects). Methods are applied where it is necessary to classify objects that are arranged hierarchically.

Purpose: to describe the structure of the language. Difference from the descriptive method: the descriptive method deals with real observable objects, and the structural ones reveal and describe the language system, which is derived from the language material through complex reasoning.

Reception: isolation of linguistic units, their generalization into classes, classification, modeling, etc.

Methods:

1. Distributive analysis is a method of researching a language based on studying the environment of individual units in a text and not using information about the complete lexical or grammatical environment of these units. Distributive analysis consists of several stages. It begins with a symbolic record of the test (noun - C, ch. - T, named after n., Personal form - lf, inf.). Then we study these records. A distribution formula is compiled.

The 2nd stage after the formula is identification — that is, the union of the set of text units into one language unit.

Especially in demand in the study of phonemes and morphemes. If 2 text units never meet in the same environment, then they belong to the same language unit. If language units are found in the same environments, but the value does not change, they belong to the same language unit. If text units are found in the environment, but differ in values, then we have different language units.

3rd: the union of the selected units into classes (n., Qual. Adjectives).

2. Analysis of the direct components . The proposal is created by successive layering of two-member structures, which are called direct components. We can decompose the sentence into components to a minimum that will be further indivisible.

Dependent components are called satellites.

3. Transformational method (proposed by Harris). Purpose: to find an elementary syntactic unit. It is based on the fact that the basic unit of the syntactic level is a certain type of simple sentence, which is called nuclear (non-resolved, narrated, confirmed, withdrawn and active voice). From the nuclear sentence by transforming the grammatical structure, we can get all the other sentences of greater or lesser complexity. Those operations that are performed on nuclear are called transformations. And the proposals that are obtained are called transformations. The sentences are generally similar in structure and value.

Knowing the rules of transformation, you can construct a transformation grammar and can construct a sentence of any degree of complexity.

4. The method of component analysis . With it, we can study the device of lexical meaning. It is based on the notion that components or semes are distinguished (the archisheme is nuclear, the differential ones make it possible to distinguish values, real ones are expressed, potential ones are inherent, etc.). The essence of the component analysis is to identify the seeds in the structure of LZ.

In addition, it is used to compare the LZ of different words: to identify common and different semes.

5. The method of six steps (Karaulov). A chain linking 2 words in a dictionary never total exceeds six steps to a common element.

3. Lingua-genetic method - based on the diachronic approach to the language and aim to study the history of a particular language or group of languages. 2 methods:

a) historical, b) comparative historical. The base of the historical is one language, and the base of the comparative historical is the group of related languages.

1. Historical - with its help the development of one language is studied. It is reduced to the method of comparing one phenomenon, taken at different stages of language development.

Reception of internal reconstruction - we take the modern form and we can describe it - compare it with the similar one. And we can assume what the prototype looked like.

2. Comparative-historical is a set of techniques aimed at solving a number of tasks: 1) to establish the genetic relationship between different languages ​​of a specific area, explain this genetic community, explain the causes and conditions of the breakdown of the proto-language, as well as individual languages; 2) explain the patterns of evolution of a group of related languages.

Receptions:

1. Acceptance of genetic identification of facts.

2. Reception of external reconstruction - we can reconstruct the more ancient state of comparing the linguistic facts of related languages.

3. Reception of relative chronology allows to establish which phenomenon precedes another.

4. Methods of glottochronology, which helps to answer the question: how fast changes in the language occur and how constantly.

5. Acceptance of linguistic geography — how facts are spatially separated.

4. Comparative or typological method - language structures are compared in their similarity and difference, regardless of their genetic affiliation. The reason for the emergence of the method was that all the languages ​​of the world have similar principles in the structural organization. Therefore, using this method, languages ​​are studied in synchrony. The task of the study is to see the similarities of languages ​​and establish a different, inherent in each language separately.

The following conditions must be met: the language must be considered as a system. Therefore, it is necessary to rely not on isolated facts, but to proceed from the systemic opposition of one's own and others. To make a match, you need several different languages.

5. Methods of quantitative analysis. They rely on a connection with mathematics. With the help of these methods, we can find a connection between the quantitative and qualitative sides of the language (n., Between the usage of a word and a long word).