The historical relationship between linguistics and applied linguistics, one producing knowledge about language and the other applying it to real-world contexts, creates a hierarchy of linguistic knowledge, with linguistic knowledge at the top, everyday views on language at the bottom and applied linguistics somewhere in the middle, mediating between the two. This relationship has started to shift as applied linguists have sought to develop their own views of language based on their engagements with language users and contexts. A key framework for this book is a form of critical social realism that allows for more than one reality, grounds epistemologies in social relations and takes a critical-ethical position on choosing between different versions of the world. Central to this discussion are questions of ontology – what language is – and the ontological turn in the social sciences. Alongside ontological questions about what languages are, a related concern is whose version of language counts. Various ways of getting at this, from lay, folk and citizen linguistic perspectives, have emphasized this need to include knowledge of language from outside the disciplinary confines of linguistics. A practical theory of language surely needs a strong relationship with how language users think about language.

Chapter 12 covers AN INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH DESIGN and includes the following specific topics, among others: Descriptive, Relational, and Causal Research Studies , Blocking, Quasi-Experimental Designs, Threats to Internal Validity, and Threats to External Validity.

Chapter 12 covers an introduction to research design and includes the following specific topics, among others: descriptive, relational, and causal research studies, blocking, quasi-experimental designs, threats to internal validity, and threats to external validity.

What are statistics and why do we need them? This chapter introduces descriptive statistics and then creates a bridge from describing data concisely to answering questions using hypothesis testing and inferential statistics. The chapter leads the reader to an understanding of how descriptive statistics summarize and communicate meaning, based on data, and how they underpin inferential statistics. Research study examples, figures, and tables throughout the chapter explain the topics addressed by applying the ideas discussed. The chapter begins with the basics of descriptive statistics – normal distributions, options for displaying frequencies, measures of central tendency and variability, and correlations. The transition to inferential statistics covers standardization and the z-score, sampling, confidence intervals, and basics of hypothesis testing including Type I and II errors. We then introduce inferential statistics using three methods – t-tests, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and chi-square tests.

Despite the tremendous renaissance of comparative constitutional law, the comparative aspect of the enterprise, as a method and a project, remains under-theorized and imprecise. Methodological self-awareness has not been one of the field’s strengths. In comparative constitutional law (and Constitutionalism in Context more generally) the term “comparative” is often used indiscriminately to describe what, in fact, are several different types of scholarship, each with its own meanings, aims and purposes. What is more, various vocational, jurisprudential, academic, and scientific stakeholders involved in practicing the art of constitutional comparison. This chapter will explore the various types, aims and methodologies deployed in exploring constitutional phenomena comparatively across time and space. In so doing, it will identify some gaps in the field’s contemporary methodological matrix and suggest ways in which these deficiencies may be addressed and overcome.

This book explores how English sentences are constructed. In this introduction, we explain our approach. We describe the current status of English as a global language, why it holds this status, and why it might not be the best choice. We characterize Standard English as a large dialect cluster, mentioning the British and American subvarieties, along with other dialects, while deploring dialect prejudice. Differences between spoken & written English, formal & informal style, and the grammarian’s purposes of describing & advising are addressed.

In the book, we introduce and define many technical terms for grammatical concepts, and here we justify some of our terminological decisions, noting that even familiar terms like noun and verb will be clearly defined, though often in ways new to the reader. We provide examples to show why.

Though many think language is about words, we focus on sentences and the discoverable constraints about how English sentences can and can’t be structured, constraints that every English speaker recognizes. The most interesting thing about grammar is that these constraints aren’t stipulated rules. They can be discovered through investigation.

This chapter begins with a real-life example that sets the scene for the core question engaged in this book: what is the substantive content of the obligations corporations have in relation to fundamental rights? The goal of the book is to develop a general legal analytical framework to answer this question at an intermediate level of determinacy that can guide decision-making in concrete cases. It also considers the institutional changes required to give effect to the framework and render it meaningful. In so doing, it highlights the union of substance, process and institutional design. The chapter outlines the methodological approach I adopt: it combines international and constitutional law; straddles the boundary between public and private law; engages insights from disciplines such as philosophy, economics and political science; and combines the normative and descriptive. The chapter also provides an outline of the structure of the argument in this book and brief description of what is accomplished in each chapter.

Section 5 of Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, “Why Utility Pleases,” is a remarkable text for a variety of reasons. First, there is no directly analogous section in the Treatise, so it raises questions about whether Hume engaged in substantial revision of his previous thought. Second, it offers evidence of a normative moral theory. Third, because Hume discusses the role of utility so favorably, it may suggest a nascent form of utilitarianism. Finally, “Why Utility Pleases” advances some of the few positions that draw criticism from Adam Smith. This chapter addresses each of these features. In response to the first, I argue that there are important differences between the Treatise and Section 5, but none that involve a rejection of the claims of the earlier work. In response to the second, I argue that “Why Utility Pleases” is best interpreted as falling squarely within Hume’s descriptive moral psychology. In response to the third, I argue that the notion of Hume as a utilitarian is dubious. Finally, in response to the fourth, I suggest that the disagreement between Smith and Hume, though nuanced and interesting, is not deep.

Objective: Appreciate the wide range of intentions, focal methods, and general characteristics of effective decision support tools.