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In:Responses to Language Varieties: Variability, processes and outcomes
Edited by Alexei Prikhodkine and Dennis R. Preston
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 39] 2015
► pp. 55–84

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Mixing methods in the study of language attitudes

Theory and application

 | University of Vienna
Published online: 16 December 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.39.03sou
Mixed methods research (MMR) is currently on the rise in the social sciences. This paper provides a theoretical discussion and a practical illustration of MMR in the social psychological study of language attitudes. First, I review perceived obstacles to MMR - in particular, the ‘incompatibility thesis’, whereby quantitative and qualitative methods are assumed to clash epistemologically. I propose an alternative account by which qual and quan research on language attitudes can be integrated on a common theoretical basis that holds attitudes to constitute interactionally processed ‘human epistemological constructs’ (HECs). I apply this approach in MMR on Austrian German, where I integrate a qual analysis of language-attitudinal HECs found in discourse data with a quan speaker evaluation experiment designed to corroborate the qual exegesis.
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