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Love, hate and indifference : the impact of talk about relationships on the interpretation of talk in relationships
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Richards, Keith (2006) Love, hate and indifference : the impact of talk about relationships on the interpretation of talk in relationships. In: UKLEF Seminar : Methodological issues in Linguistic Ethnography, Open University, 4 Mar 2006 pp. 1-8. (Unpublished)
An open access version can be found in:
Official URL: http://uklef.ioe.ac.uk/publications.html
Abstract
Methodologically, one of the things that make linguistic ethnography so interesting is its willingness to confront the challenges posed by different data collection methods within the context of its broader programme, and in this paper I’d like to focus on just one of the issues
this raises: the relationship between linguistic data and other evidence from the field. I’d like to suggest that researchers may not have given sufficient attention the dangers of privileging linguistic data over other sources and will explore briefly what the implications of this might be
for how we position ourselves as researchers. While issues of trust, researcher identity and field relationships have received considerable
attention in the literature (for recent examples see Russell 2005, Gubrium and KoroLjungberg 2005), less attention has been paid to issues of deliberate or unintentional deception, except where interviews are concerned (see, for example, Gardner 2001, Sikes 2000). In the absence of any consideration of direct linguistic evidence as problematic, we might easily assume that it occupies a privileged status, issues of selection (always limited by practical constraints) and transcription aside. However, this paper examines the effects of two
cases where undisclosed relationships were discovered towards the end of the data collection process and explores the implications of this for interpretive positioning. The first and more conventional of the two cases will show how relevant contextual information derived from fieldnotes led to a reinterpretation of a previously discrepant
exchange involving teachers in a staffroom and the subsequent bracketing out of one participant’s perspective on an important topic of staffroom talk. A second ― and much more problematic ― case reveals how interview data revealed a hitherto unsuspected antipathy
that did not, as in the first case, manifest itself in professional interaction but prompted a reinterpretation of hitherto neglected personal interaction. First, though, I’d like to consider briefly some responses to the issue of deception in research.
Item Type: | Conference Item (Paper) | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics | ||||
Official Date: | 2006 | ||||
Dates: |
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Page Range: | pp. 1-8 | ||||
Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Conference Paper Type: | Paper | ||||
Title of Event: | UKLEF Seminar : Methodological issues in Linguistic Ethnography | ||||
Type of Event: | Other | ||||
Location of Event: | Open University | ||||
Date(s) of Event: | 4 Mar 2006 | ||||
Open Access Version: |
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