It is important to classify informants according to a range of categories so that after the resulting data has been compared to the findings of other research projects, linguists can analyse which categories influence variation. Categories frequently found useful in sociolinguistics are among others:
- age, usually organized into different kinds of groups, for example decades (20-29/30-39/40-49 etc.), life stages (children, adolescent, adults etc.) or generations (10-19/40-49/70-79 or similar) (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 34-35, 39; Tagliamonte 2006: 30; Vaux 1999: 150, 154)
- sex or gender (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 34; Tagliamonte 2006: 31; Vaux and Cooper 1999: 150)
- ethnicity (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 28, 33, 44; Tagliamonte 2006: 31)
- nationality (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 7)
- location, region, neighborhood or other category of place (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 18, 34; Tagliamonte 2006: 30; Vaux 1999: 154)
- origin or descent (if, for example, the informant or his/her parents are not native to the community) (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 34)
- mobility (if someone has regular contact to members of other communities due to commuting or frequent re-locations, for instance) (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 34, 44; Vaux 1999: 154-155)
- style or register (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 4; Vaux 1999: 154, 159)
- religion (cf. Vaux 1999: 160)
- social class defined by status indicators such as lifestyle, education, informant’s and his/her parents’ occupation, income and residence/housing (these indicators can either be considered individually or can be combined and maybe weighed into some kind of composite index) (cf. Milroy and Gordon 2001: 18, 31, 40-47; Milroy 1987a: 34-35; Vaux and Cooper 1999: 154-155)
Depending on the research focus further categories may be added. Of course, not all of these categories must be included, but it should be taken into consideration which of them may be of importance to the survey. The more that are used, the better, as such information may prove helpful to research conducted at a later point in time. The best way to obtain the information listed above is to simply ask for it during the interview. That way everything one needs to know is safely recorded on tape and the fieldworker can be sure that the participant meets the necessary requirements (cf. Milroy 2001: 61; Vaux 1999: 23).
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