| Popis: |
The present handbook is the first volume that brings together the different strands in research on social and affective factors in home language maintenance and development. It therefore presents the first opportunity to explore some of the di-verse methodological questions and considerations raised in the field over time, and to discuss how different contexts and foci have impacted on research in this area. This chapter seeks to provide a birds-eye view, bringing together, critiquing, and contrasting methodological considerations across the different sub-areas. The chapter is not intended as a step-by-step guide on how to carry out research. Our focus here concerns what types of research have been conducted on social and affective factors in home language maintenance, and to provide some initial pointers to what we perceive as potential pitfalls and challenges in this research field. We begin with general observations about the research in this field in section 1, pointing to commonalities and overlaps in research designs and data collection methods. We then organise our discussion across the three levels of analysis set out in the structure of the handbook – micro, meso, and macro. In section 2 we address issues at the micro level, considering research on bilingual speakers and their families. We move to the meso level in section 3, turning to research on home language maintenance and development efforts as initiated and carried out by speaker communities. Section 4 addresses the macro level, and considers societal regulation of minority languages and their use. As these three sections make clear, studies on the micro, meso, and macro levels delimit their participant cohorts and data sources in different ways, according to their distinctive research questions and foci. Section 5 addresses a number of pitfalls researchers can and do encounter in the field, while section 6 discusses general research challenges. Section 7 concludes the chapter with brief summary and an outlook to future developments in this growing research area. |
