Sample size

3.1.2 Sample size

Numbers for a dialectological study are a very important consideration and is one of the initial questions asked of a researcher. However, the answer is not as straightforward as it seems (Schilling 2013a: 31). This section analyses the theories behind the choice of sample sizes for previous

109 linguistic studies and demonstrates the sample sizes other researchers have used and also gives the final numbers of participants for this study.

Linguistics may have different boundaries with regards to sample size when compared with other social studies. Generally, studies utilising sociolinguistic interviews may not have comparable numbers to the large sample sizes that other social science studies use. Milroy and Gordon (2003: 28-29) use a quote from Sankoff (1980) to explain that “[i]f people in a speech community can understand each other with efficiency […] this limits the extent of possible variation”. Therefore, the mutual understanding of a community would make a group’s linguistic behaviour more homogenous. Thus, a smaller sample size would still be meaningful for researchers to generalise from. In agreement with Milroy and Gordon, Schilling (2013a) also affirms that a statistically representative sample size (as predicted by other social science research) may not be necessary for sociolinguistic research which can be a far smaller size (e.g. Labov 1966:

180-181; Sankoff, 1980: 51-52).

Other than the ability to generalise, there are also different practical considerations. The feasibility of a study will “partly dictate sample size”

(Milroy and Gordon 2003: 29). The example of Shuy et al.’s (1968) study of Detroit’s African American English is a good one for demonstrating the consideration of practicalities. The researchers there interviewed around 702 participants but realised that the amount of data generated would be impossible to analyse in the allotted time frame. Ultimately, they used a

‘judgement sample’ (see 3.1.1) of just 36 to describe the dialect of this speech community (Schilling 2013a, Milroy and Gordon 2003). Pressley (2002) encountered a similar situation in the 1999 study of MxE. The wider project of ‘Recording Mann’ logged around 700 participant voices, and the data were studies by 6 different researchers. Pressley chose just 32 of the recordings for her phonological analysis of MxE dialect in Douglas and Onchan.

A sociolinguistic study should not be too big due to practical and analytical considerations. However, it should also be large enough that we can make generalisations about the remainder of the population of that speech community. With regards to participant numbers, Milroy and Gordon explain that:

If the sample size is to be representative of a society that contains persons of different social statuses, different ages and both sexes, we will be obliged, if we want to make more generalisations about any of these subgroups, to subdivide an already small sample (2003: 29)

Milroy and Gordon explain how the ‘cells’ or categories must be filled for any subgroup that the researcher has defined. With equal numbers for each subgroup, the ideal number for generalisation is around 4 for each category. Labov found that ’25-30 cases’ were sufficient to demonstrate a summary of stylistic language variation of a speech community (Labov 1966: 638).

111 Other research with sociolinguistic interviews has included: Labov’s New York Studies (1966) which had 88 participants, Trudgill (1983) in Norwich included 60 participants, Walters in the Rhondda (1999) had 60, Pressley in Douglas and Onchan (2002) used 32, Smith and Durham (2011) on the Shetland Isles recorded 30 participants. Therefore, there is no one answer to the question of sample size and it depends entirely on the research questions and the grouping of the participants. The overall numbers for this research interview process were as follows (table 7 shows the total number of interviewed speakers. Table 8 shows the number chosen for analysis):

Table 7: Demographic overview of all participants recorded

Number of Participants 57 Number of Interviews 22

Average Interview Length 45 minutes

Total Interview Time 12 hours 16 minutes

Table 8: Demographic overview of participants used in Analysis

Number of Participants 32 Number of Interviews 18

The participants were chosen for analysis due to their demographics. From the 57 participants interviewed (table 7); I wanted an equal number of

males and females in each of the four age categories; this gave me a total of 32 participants for analysis (table 8). I also needed an even spread between the south, middle and north of the Island. I chose the participants who would best meet these categories while also thinking about the amount of time they talked (some of the less talkative participants may not have given enough tokens of a certain feature/features for analysis).

Another judgement was based on families. I made sure not too many members from one family were present in the study, but I did want to include a generational dimension to the analysis. As an apparent-time study it was important to investigate changes in different generations.

Using a family for this type of research can be beneficial in many ways.

First, it may be that some social factors have not changed a great deal over generations (more discussion in 3.2.4) (Wray and Bloomer 2012). In addition, from a practical standpoint, it is easier to record a family group than to get different families together at one time. Also, ‘natural speech’

may be aided with conversation between family members rather than with strangers. Finally, from an ethical standpoint, when recording participants under 18 years old, I would always record them with a family member present. After filling the categories, the remaining 32 participants were analysed for the study.

3.2 Informants

All names have been changed for anonymisation of participants. Also, all names of workplaces or schools or areas have been removed or changed.

Finally, the data has not been made publicly available.

113 The previous section described the reasoning for the choices made when recruiting participants, how to access a community and how many participants were used. The following section describes which members of the community were chosen and for what reason. In order to best understand the phonology of MxE, I decided who best represents the community that I was analysing as it is “impossible to include every individual from a community” (Schilling 2013a: 31). This part addresses the issues of age, sex, location and the demographics of the participants.

Each topic is considered with reflections of past sociolinguistic studies and then applied to this MxE project.