Collecting sociolinguistic data: Some typical and some not so typical approaches

The article reports on a survey of data collection techniques used in analyzing social variation and language use. It examines three main types of data collection techniques such as surveys, interviews, and polling techniques. An outline of the methodology that is used in early dialect studies and sociolinguistic interviews is given. Polling techniques including new and innovative fast surveys used in data collecting is also discussed. Furthermore, results obtained by employing different methods are presented to illustrate the effectiveness in identifying and describing social variables.