CRITICAL DISCUSSION ANALYSIS: HOW TO ASSURE THE REPRESENTATIVITY OF THE TEXT CORPUS?

Abstract

Nowadays, qualitative methods of research that deal with the study of linguistic representations of social reality (narrative analysis, discursive analysis, conversive analysis etc) are becoming more and more widespread in pshychology.

These methods are an efficient instrument of psychological research. However, researcher should clearly understand the possibilities and limits of application of such methods. The article addresses the current problem of evaluation of representativeness of the text corpuses. The requirement to representativeness of a text corpus implies the presence of the necessary number of texts that are enough to solve the research problems. Representativeness is viewed in various aspects and conclusion is made that reseacher’s personality (who is a corpus builder) has direct impact onto representativeness of a corpus. This impact is further analyzed different aspects producing a justified statement that no corpora may be compiled free of author’s view. On the basis of the theoretical analysis, the authors have revealed the role of triangulation in ensuring the representativeness of the text corpus and improving validity of empirical study results. The author emphasizes that investigator triangulation makes it possible to formulate conceptual generalizations based on the results that are obtained by different experts. Applying of triangulation as a investigator tactic is necessary for the formation of a text corpus. Prospective trends for development in this area are provided.