Chapter published in:
Heritage Languages: A language contact approach
Suzanne Aalberse, Ad Backus and Pieter Muysken
[Studies in Bilingualism 58] 2019
► pp. 87–109

Chapter 5
Methods for collecting heritage language data

Article outline
  • 5.1Introduction
  • 5.2Criteria for evaluating a particular method: Validity
  • 5.3Overview of methods used
    • 5.3.1Spoken data
      • Participant selection
      • Research design and procedure
      • Data handling: Storage, transcription and annotation
    • 5.3.2Written documents
      • ‘Ethnic’ newspapers and other written documents
      • Chat sites and social media
      • Observations, e.g. of linguistic landscapes
    • 5.3.3Survey data and questionnaires
    • 5.3.4Experimental data
    • 5.3.5Judgment tasks
  • 5.4Summary and conclusion: Which method to choose?
    • What am I going to study?
    • Who am I going to study?
    • How much data do I need?