Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on codes and abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Data collection
- 3 The sociolinguistic interview
- 4 Data, data and more data
- 5 The linguistic variable
- 6 Formulating hypotheses/operationalising claims
- 7 The variable rule program: theory and practice
- 8 The how-to's of a variationist analysis
- 9 Distributional analysis
- 10 Multivariate analysis
- 11 Interpreting your results
- 12 Finding the story
- Glossary of terms
- References
- Index
10 - Multivariate analysis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Notes on codes and abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Data collection
- 3 The sociolinguistic interview
- 4 Data, data and more data
- 5 The linguistic variable
- 6 Formulating hypotheses/operationalising claims
- 7 The variable rule program: theory and practice
- 8 The how-to's of a variationist analysis
- 9 Distributional analysis
- 10 Multivariate analysis
- 11 Interpreting your results
- 12 Finding the story
- Glossary of terms
- References
- Index
Summary
How do I work through a multivariate analysis?
This chapter will illustrate the procedures for performing a multivariate analysis, particularly how to determine if the analysis is the ‘best’ one, how to look for and identify ‘interaction’, and what to do about it when you find it.
At this point, you are ready to move forward with a fully fledged variable rule analysis of your data. Goldvarb 2.1, Goldvarb 2001 and Goldvarb X permit variable rule analysis with binomial applications. Only one or two values can be declared as application values (Rand and Sankoff 1990: 24). The multinomial one level visible under the ‘CELLS’ drop-down menu in Goldvarb 2.1 and Goldvarb X have never been implemented. To my knowledge the only version of the variable rule program which permits more than binomial application is Varbrul 3, which permits the trinomial case. For further discussion, see Rousseau and Sankoff (1978a, 1978b). However, very few analyses in the field have used this type of analysis.
A further requirement for running the variable rule program is that the condition file you use produces marginal results with no singletons and no KnockOuts. Having worked through your analysis as described in Chapter 7, you should already have a condition file, or series of condition files, that meet this requirement. With one of these condition files and the data file open, load the cells to memory, and save them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation , pp. 217 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006