Hybrid symposium on the quantitative/qualitative divide in applied linguistics

ABOUT

As the field of applied linguistics has grown, research questions and research methods have become more diverse. Many have argued that methodological diversity is a benefit, but at the same time, we might argue that this diversity has resulted in subareas of applied linguistics that are epistemologically incompatible. Whether they are or not, many researchers have fallen into camps that rarely interact (i.e., “the quant/qual divide”). Furthermore, corpus-based analyses of quantitative and qualitative published research highlight differences that may make it difficult to read or write across the aisle. This bifurcation may be problematic for graduate education and perhaps to the field in general. This symposium will address the extent of this divide and what the implications of the divide are for knowledge-building and for the profession.