ETI 321 READING AND WRITING SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

ETI 321 READING AND WRITING SCIENTIFIC TEXTS Week 7 RESEARCH PROCEDURE SamplIng techniques

Last week: We discussed MLA style for reference giving. We talked about research questions, claims and hypothesis, We talked about conceptual vs empirical research, types of empirical research, qualitative vs quantitative research, case studies, pilot studies, surveys, historical and archive studies...

For this week, you should have Reviewed your bibliography, Defined your research procedure, Started reading your sources, taking notes, making summaries, etc.

In this week’s course, we will do the following: Listen to your research procedure, See whether you applied MLA style or not in your bibliography, Talk about hypothesis, Talk about sampling techniquesand basic statistics.

Hypothesis What is hypothesis? What are your hypotheses for your research?

Hypothesis Every study has some kind of “claims” (=hypotheses). Hypothesis may be explicitly stated or not. Sometimes hypothesis is expressed by research questions. Hypothesis is what you expect from your study, depending on some theory. While conducting your research, you should test your hypothesis. Testing your hypothesis requires the application of a series of procedure. This procedure is what makes your work a scientific search for the truth and it distinguishes from other types of search for knowledge.

Testing your hypothesis Operationalizing Operationalizing is making your hypothesis concrete so that you can easily test it. To fulfill this step, you first need an operational definition. If your research involves for example “a successful translation”, you need to define what successful means in this context. What criteria will you be using in distinguishing successful from unsuccessful? Now let’s think about your own operational definitions? Do you think you need to find your own operational definitions? What are they?

Operationalizing Operationalizing makes your study transparent, objective and explicit. Another scholar would find it possible to duplicate your research. And that means your research is reliable.

Testing An empirical hypothesis is falsifiable, that is it is equally possible to falsify your hypothesis. Williams and Chesterman argue that hypothesis can be tested on four criteria (ACID tests): Added value: new understanding Comparative value: in comparison to other hypotheis Internal value: logic, clarity, elegance, economy Data: empirical evidence

Testing “Whatever the hypothesis, it is worth bearing in mind that, strictly speaking, a hypothesis can never be proved true, or confirmed to be true. Science does not proceed by piling up truths, but by developing better and better hypotheses, which may well approximate closer and closer to being accurate descriptions or explanations of reality. An empirical test may support a hypothesis, or corroborate it; or it may not support it; or it may falsify it.”

Variables “In many disciplines, the aspects of reality that we are trying to connect, as a way of understanding them better, are known as variables.” Suppose that we are conducting a research on the comparison of translated and not translated texts. The variables would be translated texts and not translated ones. To give another example from a different discipline, suppose you are conducting a research on the effects of cigarette smoking on men and women. Your variables would be i) sex, ii) smoking habits.

Variables Question: You are conducting a research on age factor on the translation of underground literature. Your hypothesis is something like this: Younger translators tend to be more successful in translating underground literature since they are expected to be more familiar with the jargon when compared to older professionals. What are the variables? What are your variables then?

Variables “As in many other studies, translation studies investigate the relationship between two variables.” There are three type of relations: causal correlation chance Question: In poor countries, people tend to have more donkeys. Two variables here are : poverty level and number of donkeys. What kind of a relationship exist between these two variables?

Variables “In translation studies, we deal with two kinds of variables- those that have to do with the translations themselves, and others that have to do with the world outside the translations- and we try to discover something about the relations between them...what we try to do is to see how aspects of translations are related to aspects of the wider world. A major problem is hat tehre are so many variables to be considered. It is often difficult or impossible to exclude variables that one is not interested in, but which may nevertheless affect the results of an analysis” Williams and Chesterman 2002: 85)

Variables These two variables are named text variables (translated text’s some feature) context variables (the context of translation)

Context variables Source text variables Target-language variables Task variables Translator variables Socio-cultural variables Reception variables

Variables: question Now revisit your variables in the light of text and context variables.

Data: Selecting and Analyzing Data in translation studies include the following: Translated and/or not translated texts, Reader reactions Translators’ opinions Textual features Think-aloud protocols Retrospective interviews Footnotes Translation reviews Translators’ correspondence Paratexts (=prefaces, book covers, etc.) ...

Representativeness “Whatever your data, you need to decide to what extent it is typical or special. If your material looks like a special case, you obviously cannot draw more general conclusions about it. All you can say is that data of this kind are possible, they do exist; or you can claim that your data can indeed be interpreted in a particular way” (W&C 2002: 92-3) “If you want to generalize from your results –i.e. To go beyond what your own data tell you- then you need to convince your readers that your data are not special cases but typical ones, representative of a wider population: perhaps potentially representative of all other instances of a given kind. “

Representativeness “If what you want to do is test the validity of a general hypothesis, your data need to be randomly chosen from the point of view of the hypothesis. That means, they must not be biased in advance either in favour of or against the hypothesis, so that the test will be fair.”

Representativeness: a question In an internet poll survey, 60% of the informants stated that they will vote for CHP in coming elections. So, we can say that Kılıçdaroğlu will probably be the prime minister after the next elections are held. What do you think about the representativeness of this data?

Random sampling A representative data needs to be randomly chosen. In statistics, random sampling is a technique to avoid bias in sampling. The adjective ‘random’ does not mean ‘haphazard’. Williams and Chesterman (2002:96) say: “For your sample to be truly random it must have the same chance of being selected as all other potential samples of that data. So, for instance, if you want to study a random sample of the translation output of a single translator who has translated 25 novels from English into Arabic, you might start by deciding that your sample will consist of 5 novels. This will give you a very large number of possible samples. In order to ensure that your choice is completely random in the statistical sense, you will need tohave recourse to a Table of Random Numbers...”

Random sampling But note that sometimes your purpose in the study does not require random sampling. If you are going to conduct a research on the earlier works of a translator, then you won’t need to randomly select among his works.

Table of random numbers

Random sample calculator http://stattrek.com/Tables/Random.aspx

Some statistics: data processing Mean (average): All the values are added and then divided by the number in the set. 5 students got 60, 55, 80, 77 and 45 in translation exam. The mean is=? The mode: the number that occurs most often in a set of numbers. 10 translation students got these marks in an exam: 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 43, 43, 85, 90, 95. what is the mode? The median: the median is got by listing the data in order of size and take the number in the middle of the set. 10 translation students got these marks in an exam: 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 43, 43, 85, 90, 95. what is the median?

Homework for next week: submit a paper including the following: Title of your study Introduction Aim and scope, research questions Method Bibliography

Your research The structure of your plan is like this: Introduction: your topic, its background and significance of the topic to science and/or society Aim and scope of the research: clear research question(s), and how you restrict the scope of your project Theoretical background: brief literature survey, main relevant sources, main concepts and definitions Material: What kind of data, where from....? Method Analysis ...

ETI 321 READING AND WRITING SCIENTIFIC TEXTS