Ethnography

With this in mind, I have chosen to primarily use interviews informed by some participant observation within a broadly ethnographic perspective. Ethnographic research involves taking a deeper look into a particular culture, small communities within a larger one (Harklau, 2005), or even organizations or programs (Dörnyei, 2007). The central purpose of this kind of research is to study a particular group long enough in order to describe how the people belonging to that culture function within it in daily life, work, or recreation (Heigham & Sakui, 2009, p. 92). Ethnography originated in anthropological and sociological research that focused on naturalistic, long-term observation and participation in a particular social setting: the early ethnographers like Malinowski, Mead, and Evans-Pritchard spent

considerable time among indigenous people groups as they sought to describe various social structures or events in cultures that differed significantly from Western culture (Geertz, 1989). In more recent years, ethnographic research has been used in a variety of educational settings (Harklau, 2005).

Ethnography has been treated as both a method (Mackey & Gass, 2005) and as a methodology (Richards, 2003; Heigham & Sakui, 2009) and, at times, discussed as both simultaneously (Dörnyei, 2007). Lillis (2008) carefully differentiated the terms method and methodology: a method being a technique or tool that is used alongside other tools, while a methodology is a collection of methods (or data sources) that operates within a specific ontology and epistemology (pp. 355; 374-375). She situated her understanding of these terms within her context of researching academic writing, considering the values and limitations of defining ethnography in these ways. Viewing ethnography as a kind of method, namely, tools and techniques largely taken from anthropological ethnography, creates the opportunity to consider the context of the text, but Lillis further argued that understanding ethnography as a methodology allows the researcher to take a more holistic approach “in order to move away from a container notion of context…and towards a notion of contextualization—that is, researching what is relevant from any specific aspect of context to specific acts and practices [of the issue]” (p. 381). Thus, ethnography as a methodology enables the researcher, as in her study, to blend together the emic and etic understandings due to the thick description and participation obtained through continued engagement with participants (p. 382).

From my viewpoint, ethnography as a methodology is supported by and operates on a few key assumptions. First, there is value in studying a small slice of a particular culture or extensively probing a circumscribed setting in order to gain a rich, detailed understanding of that situation. The “thick description” described by Geertz (1973) plays an important role here. Geertz discussed thick description, drawing on the work of the philosopher Gilbert

Ryle, as including both a description of observed events and an interpretation of the cultural meaning of these events in context, thus contributing to a fuller understanding of a particular situation. Second, how the researchers understand or interpret this small slice can inform the larger community or can speak to related issues within the larger community. Third,

researchers, as much as possible, should be reflexively aware of the agendas that they bring to the research and their impact on the study itself (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995, p. 18), while allowing the data to speak for itself (Wolcott, 1994). While my study is not a full ethnography in the classic sense, where I followed first-year students around campus and experienced their first year of university as they did, the assumptions above guide my choice of ethnographic methods, namely interviews and participant observation, to explore identity construction.

The use of these methods is justified in two ways. The first is that the primary topic of this study centers on the language patterns and practices of the participants – how they use particular language to construct a particular identity. Therefore, engaging them in

conversation can elicit speech patterns and illuminate the practices in which each participant engages. For social constructionists, conversing together is an important act in creating meaning (Berger & Luckmann, 1966): this position views the interview as co-constructed by both interviewer and interviewee, “offering insights into what participants say they believe or do” (Edley & Litosseliti, 2010, p. 173, emphasis in original). While these first-year students would not normally engage in interviews, these interactions still have the potential to elicit the participants’ speech patterns and experiences within the university community. Since I want to focus on what my participants actually say, interviews are a helpful method for obtaining this kind of data.

The second relates to my role within the community as a faculty member for over a decade (discussed more fully in section 3.2.4). Though I had not officially studied the

community culture prior to this study, as a member of the community, I have lived this culture for many years as a participant and an observer and have thus developed an emic perspective. One of the key characteristics of ethnography is participant observation for an extended period of time (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995); moreover, ethnographic studies typically involve the element of a longitudinal design in which researchers study the desired issue or people group for a considerable length of time (Jeffrey & Troman, 2004, p. 536). After a brief discussion on the debate of what time requirements exist for an ethnographic study to be counted as longitudinal, Jeffrey and Troman discussed different ethnographic time modes, focusing more on the researcher as an outsider to the selected research site. Their notion of a recurrent time mode for ethnographic research fits well with my study because it offers the “opportunity to follow the narrative of an experience…over a specific time period and to chart the development” of particular individuals over time (p. 542). Because my ongoing membership within the community depends on me performing my fulltime work requirements as a faculty member, I could not spend all of my time interviewing and observing. Thus, I selected periods throughout the academic year for interviewing my participants in order to note any changes in their own language practices as they became familiar with the community’s language practices. Ultimately, this is an

ethnographically informed interview study with participant observation, all of which will be further explained in the sections below.

3.2.Data Collection and methods