The “I” in sociolinguistics: The role of subjectivity in ethnographic fieldwork

Abstract

This paper illustrates the importance of reflexivity for the awareness of a researcher’s subjectivity in (socio)linguistic work on tourism, particularly during fieldwork. It shows that a researcher’s positionality, i.e. their loyalties to epistemological conceptions and tools, crucially affects every part of the research process, reaching from the inception of the topic, to the choice of the relevant methodology and participants, to such apparently objective procedures as statistical analyses. This is illustrated by a study applying Q-methodology from psychology used to investigate language choices in the tourist space of Zanzibar. The method’s focus on subjective views of the participants makes it a powerful tool to raise a researcher’s awareness of their own subjectivity with respect to the research process. Ultimately, the paper argues, such constructionist approaches to science produce more valid results in linguistics, as well as in other areas of science in general.