Today our topic of discussion is – Data recording process
Data recording process
I have recorded the data manually by writing them up. During the observations I took short notes or used short hands to input the data on individual copies made for each child, later I wrote them elaborately and transcribed them.
Special notes were also taken for behaviours, acts, or language use that I found more appropriate and relevant in explaining their meaning acquisition process. I tried to video record at first and later audio- record (like I did with my interviewees) too, but the children walked, ran all over the house instead of just sitting in one place.
It made the continuous recording job almost impossible. Moreover, children showed ‘hawthorn effect’ during video recordings and disrupted my attention too. Then I recorded only few special events like ‘story telling”, *telling rhymes or singing songs’ or ‘children involved in joint work without informing them.
I wanted to have peaceful and quality time with the young informants without any interruption during our participation period. “Meaning in use’ is not a frequent process that is happening continuously; it is not like recording children’s first use of verbs or any other language form.
Child meaning is expressed not only through their language; actions, gestures, body languages also help to communicate meaning for them. Thorough audio recording could have been a backup option for data collection,
but in this study absence of continuous audio-taping did not affect the actual purpose and objective of this research as I feel unlike other linguistic developments (phonology or morphology), meaning acquisition cannot be explored properly by recording day today use of language traits.
It needs keen person returned home. This constricted timing sometimes meant quick, shallow encounters with participants. Nevertheless, this study was able to delve deep about language acquisition, especially how they communicated meaning, as both the participants and parents opened up and enriched my data.
observation and analytical ability to understand the gradual developments of any child’s meaning making process. Still I recorded special features, some long conversations, rhymes, songs and what I felt useful for further analysis.
But over all data collection was smooth and interesting; I enjoyed spending time with the participants too. Though For future researches, an option could be kept open to employ someone for technological assistance.
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