BY: MESHKAT ALI AL-SUYOFI

Under the supervision of

Dr. Amira kashgary

TECHNOIQUES FOR COLLECTING DATA

Chapter 12

Tape-recording dataAudio and video recording is a support to many types of work, where it may save the researcher from having to make frantic notes at the time and risk missing important information. But in linguistics , where the speech itself is the subject of analysis, it is especially important to have a good quality recording. Recorded data is suitable for a range of projects,

including those in.:

*First language acquisition *Second language acquisition

*Sociolinguistics *Accent and dialect studies

* Conversation

Places to get dataProvided you take note of possible problems due to such things as background noise the following sources may furnish interesting data: your

family home, a train, a cafe , the radio, old recordings .

Audio and video in must circumstances audio data is sufficient but it is certainly worth considering using video equipment. You will get better quality sound from audio recording .

Ethics and legalityThere are important ethical considerations when it comes to recording people. Either ask their permission first or, if you feel that your data will be less ‘genuine’ if they know you are recording, ask them afterwards.

Quality Golden rule number one in collecting recorded data is to remember that you will have to listen to it over and over again, till you`re sick of it. You will need to listen for detail, so it must be well recorded otherwise background noise will increasingly become a problem.

Practicalities • use a good machine and make sure you know how it operates.• use new good-quality tapes and ensure you have plenty. If you will use several label them in advance and use them in order.•Consider using two machines, with the second one set up ready to record.

•Avoid recording on dictaphone ,as the quality is poor even before the data is transferred onto normal -sized cassettes.•If possible use external microphone , in particular try to avoid using a machine with a built in condensor mike that is right next to the motor as the background hum will be a problem . • if using video consider whether you want to hand hold the camera or put it on a tripod .•If you decide to conceal a camera or tape recorder plan carefully how you will achieve this.• if you may want to plan to collect data from more subjects than you need in case anything goes wrong with the recording.•Make a copy onto another tape of just those parts of the data that you are focusing on: this avoids getting lost in endless fast for-warding and reversing.