1 Introduction：starting on the right foot

Choosing an area

Getting organized

Using resources

Being a researcher

Setting up data-based research

Preface by Halliday

Being streetwise：keeping on the right side of your assessor

王宗炎序

Preface by Chomsky

2 Psycholinguistics

PART I AREAS OF STUDY AND PROJECT IDEAS

Textbooks and major journals

Central themes and project ideas

Modularity

Themes in comprehension

沈家煊序

导读

Themes in production

Preface

The units of normal processing

Language and thought

Approaches to research

International Phonetic Alphabet

3 First-language acquisition and development

Terminology

Textbooks and major journals

The CHILDES database

Things to think about

Longitudinal case studies

Central themes and project ideas

Pre-linguistic development

Over-and under-extension：lexical and semantic development

Children s morphology

Development of phonology and intonation

Comprehension of complex grammatical structures

Children s metalinguistic awareness

Colour terms

Carer language（or’child-directed speech ）

Conversational development

Sources of variation in child language

Literacy development

4 Conversation analysis

Textbooks

Central themes and project ideas

Major journals

Scripted versus non-scripted conversation

Radio and TV interviews

The development of children s conversational skills

Conversation and gender

Language，power and hierarchy

5 Second-language acquisition

Terminology

Textbooks and major journals

Things to think about

Central themes and project ideas

Developmental sequences and the process of acquisition

Comparison of L1 and L2 acquisition

Language-learning targets

Grammar-based and communication-based teaching

Different concepts expressed in different languages

Vocabulary acquisition

The learner s approach and experience

Interlanguage，error analysis and contrastive analysis

Language assessment and testing

Bilinguals，multilinguals and polyglots

Foreign language teaching policy

Effect of the year abroad

Role of the social and political status of English as L2

6 Style in texts

Textbooks and major journals

Finding and approaching a text

Central themes and project ideas

Interpersonal function

Sound patterns

Lexical choice

Grammatical structure

Authorship

Ideology and power

7 Sociolinguistics

Terminology and central concepts

Textbooks and major journals

Central themes and project ideas

Types and causes of variation

Quantitative approaches

Social networks

Qualitative approaches

8 Accents and dialects of English

Terminology

Textbooks

Other resources

Which accent/dialect to choose

Major journals

What to look for in an accent

What to look for in a dialect

Possible angles and project ideas

Comparing the speech of three generations

Explaining why a variety has come about

The political dimension of a variety

Accent and dialect in literature

Update study

Comparison of two varieties

Things to think about

9 Structure and meaning

Textbooks and major journals

Central themes and project ideas

Pragmatics

Metaphor

Sentence structure

Lexicon and collocation

Morphology and etymology

Punctuation

‘Correct’grammar

10 Historical linguistics

Textbooks，reference sources and major journals

Central themes and project ideas

Researching words

Pronunciation and spelling

History of English dialects

The profile of a feature of English across time

Socio-political trends and influences on English

English as a world language

Things to think about

The influence of literacy on language

11 Language and gender

Terminology

Useful skills and knowledge

Textbooks

Major journals

Central themes and project ideas

The history and development of language and gender as a branch of linguistics

Attitudes towards male and female language

Male-female differences in accent and dialect

Differences in conversation and style of language use

Explanations of difference

Language and sexism

Gender-differentiated language in first-language acquisition

Language，gender and education

Places to get data

PART II TECHNIQUES FOR COLLECTING DATA

12 Tape-recording date

Audio or video?

Ethics and legality

Quality

Practicalities

Things to think about

How much data do you need?

Eliciting data from informants

13 Experiments

What does experimentation involve?

Advantages of experimental research

Disadvantages of experimental research

Designing an experiment

Things to think about

Practice and fatigue effects

Order effects

Floor and ceiling effects

Emergencies

14 Questionnaires

What is a questionnaire?

What research areas can a questionnaire be used for?

Subjects

Handling personal information

Presenting a questionnaire

Designing a questionnaire

Types of data

Specific techniques

Things to think about

Relating the questionnaire to the study

Written questionnaires

Spoken questionnaires

15 Interviews

General procedures

Approaches to interviewing

Data elicitation

Asking for intuitions

Gathering general data for later analysis

16 Observation and case studies

Observation studies

Advantages

Disadvantages

Things to think about

Case studies

Advantages

Disadvantages

Dealing with the results

How to set up a case study

PART III TOOLS FOR DATA ANALYSIS AND PROJECT WRITING

17 Transcribing speech phonetically and phonemically

The difference between phonetic and phonemic transcription

A few notes on phonemes

Hints on writing about pronunciation

Checklist of phonemes

18 Transcribing speech orthographically

Basics

Dealing with silence

Dealing with complexity

Dealing with obscurity and unusual pronunciations

Use of conventional punctuation

Dealing with pitch，emphasis，speed and volume

Layout problems

External events

Other problems

19 Using computers to study texts

Corpora and other computer-readable textual materials

Why you might want to study texts using a computer

Compiling your own corpus：potential problems

Corpora and other texts of English available for academic use

How to get hold of a corpus

Types of corpus annotation

Linguistic analyses that can be done using computers and how to do them

Programs that are available for text analysis

Other applications of computers in relation to texts

Textbooks

20 The Data Protection Act

What is the Data Protection Act?

Registration

Important note

21 How to reference

Basics

The Harvard system

The Humane system

22 Plagiarism and how to avoid it

What is plagiarism?

How to avoid accidental plagiarism：some strategies

An exercise in using published sources，creating a sophisticated account，and avoiding plagiarism

23 Statistics

Why use statistics?

What can statistics do?

Statistics and hypotheses

Choosing statistical tests

Textbooks

Gaining confidence

Key to the most common algebraic symbols used in basic statistics

24 Using an abstracting journal

What are abstracting journals?

What abstracting journals are available?

What to do

25 Handy hints on writing good academic English

Before you write

As you are writing

After you have written

The uses of apostrophes

Using punctuation

Other common problems

References

Index

文库索引