Chapter published in:
Critical Reflections on Data in Second Language Acquisition
Edited by Aarnes Gudmestad and Amanda Edmonds
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 51] 2018
► pp. 197–218

Chapter 8
Naturalistic data in L2 pragmatics research

Challenges and opportunities

| Illinois State University
This chapter considers the topic of naturalistic data in L2 pragmatics research, discussing what ‘natural’ means, outlining different means of gathering natural data, and highlighting both the advantages and the challenges of working with data in natural settings. That discussion is followed by suggestions for collecting and analyzing naturalistic data based on the author’s experiences using a longitudinal corpus of naturalistic social interactions for the purpose of studying L2 pragmatics. More specifically, issues of comparability, ethics, recording type, triangulation of data, and targeted pragmatic features are addressed.
Keywords: second language pragmatics, naturalistic data, longitudinal data, research methods
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • What are natural data?
  • Advantages and challenges of naturalistic data
  • Reflections on and suggestions for using naturalistic data to study L2 pragmatics
    • Comparability
    • Audio versus video recordings
    • Ethical issues
    • Triangulation of data
    • Pragmatic features targeted
  • Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 10 September 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.51.09shi
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