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85 THE DATA OF LINGUISTICS
back-channelling, interruption and the precise phonetic nature of
what is produced by infants.
Possible disadvantages of this type of data include:
• It takes an extremely long time to transcribe tapes, and accuracy of
transcription is often difficult to achieve.
• The observer’s paradox states that an observed interaction is not
exactly like an unobserved one precisely because it is observed.
• Structures of interest may occur very rarely, and thus require very
large amounts of data.
• It can be difficult to search the data (though this is becoming easier
with various electronic analysis tools).
• There are ethical and legal concerns in collecting data of this kind, and
careful planning is required.
Recordings of word-lists, read texts, etc.
Possible benefits of this type of data include:
• It allows the linguist to focus of points of interest.
• It allows relatively rapid collection of relevant data.
• It allows collection of data which occurs naturally only rarely.
Possible disadvantages of this type of data include:
• Some speakers have difficulty in reading fluently.
• Read text is not pronounced just like naturally produced text, partly
because it is done with rather more conscious control.
• Words are not pronounced precisely the same way in word-lists as they
are in ordinary conversation.
• Word-lists are typically spoken with listing intonation, which may
have effects on the pronunciation of the individual words, as well as
making words early in a list different from the final items in a list.
• The concentration of particular phenomena in a short text or wordlist
may make the focus of the enquiry obvious.
• People willing to undertake the required tasks are often not randomly
spread across the required gender/socio-economic/ethnic/age groups,
which means that careful planning may be required in collecting suitable
data.
Although a binary division has been made here between naturally occurring
events and elicited material, there are various attempts made to create events