PROBLEM ODABIRA ISTRAŽIVAČKIH METODA KOD USVAJANJA JEZIKA KAO KOMPLEKSNOG SISTEMA
CHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE RESEARCH METHOD IN SLA AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM

Summary/Abstract: Since its beginnings, researchers in the field of this relatively young transdisciplinary field of language acquisition have faced many difficulties in describing and proving some linguistic phenomena.The structuralist view of language facilitated quantitative analyses, but only if the structure of the language itself was investigated. However, whenever it had to explain linguistic phenomena when it comes to language in use, it was realized that quantitative analyzes are not sufficient and do not shed light on the problem in the right way. Often the results of such research were inadequate, incomplete or even contradictory. Quantitative methods such as conversation analysis and discourse analysis seemed to be much better able to describe the processes of language acquisition, but it also had many shortcomings. The problem of excessive subjectivity of the researcher, as well as his competence in data interpretation, called the results into question. Qualitative methods in language acquisition research can also only describe individual cases and it is difficult to draw more general conclusions. After Larsen-Freemen first tried to explain language acquisition in 1997 by presenting it as a complex dynamic system consisting of many subsystems and therefore many variables that interact and are often unpredictable, the science of second language acquisition ihas been seeking for an adequate method which can describe these phenomena. When the whole set of interacting variables in this branch of applied linguistics was observed, it was clear that it was necessary to cross all scientific data to get as relevant results as possible. Schematic representations and panels, graphs and 3d models were more suitable for describing scientific results. More and more scientists in this field resorted to mixed methods research that often had unnecessary redundant data that accumulated without any contribution. Zoltán Dörnyei, a renowned Hungarian scientist and professor in the field of second language acquisition, in 2014 at a plenary lecture in Nottingham, proposed a new method for collecting and analyzing data, which he called "Retrodictive Qualitative Modeling" and presented its potential advantages in relation to to other methods. Also, the development of statistical software allows the modern science of language to cross a much larger number of data and thus be one step closer to describing and predicting complex linguistic phenomena. Today, there are a number of proposals for using methods in language research that are essentially integrative, combining numerical data with descriptive statements. It remains for future generations of researchers to determine which of the proposed and described methods would be the most suitable and effective in practice and which results could describe and improve practice. This paper has a goal using a descriptive method to give a short critical review of methodology in SLA..

• Details
• Contents