researcher to resist inserting himself into the data collection and analysis process and simply allow the threads to appear as they do and follow them and analyze them according to the criteria stipulated in the methodology.
Being upfront about one’s subjective assumptions can help to allow the actual meaning of facts to emerge through the data collection process as well. One can approach a subject with a sense of what the meaning of things already is—so it is important in this case for the researcher to state those ideas up front and to allow the reader to… Continue Reading...
perspective). As linguistics has employed more quantitative and empirical methods of data collection and analysis, it becomes increasingly possible to make more cogent arguments about the efficacy of both Pinker’s or Whorf’s points of view. Pinker’s perspective is commonly called “nativism,” not to be confused with the racist political ideology that bears the same name (Levinson 25). Nativism in linguistics refers to the innate capacity of people for language development, based on evolutionary theory. According to Levinson, Pinker’s nativism rests on two assumptions. The first assumption aligns with Chomsky’s own research, and has to do simply with the “universal and innate”… Continue Reading...