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Three worlds of variables to control in linguistics

  • Chunlei Yang ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: October 15, 2024
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Abstract

Using the Popperian three-world theory, we draw a general picture of linguistic variables in linguistic data elicitation, judgement, and analysis. To cope with these three worlds of variables, we have two suggestions, namely careful variable control and bigger data size, as well as two reminders with respect to indiscriminate data and proportional conclusions.


Corresponding author: Chunlei Yang, School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, 550 Dalian Xi Lu, Shanghai 200083, China, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Jeroen van de Weijer and Lei Zhu for their comments on the previous versions of this paper. All remaining errors are, of course, my own.

  1. Research funding: This research was sponsored by Research Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, China (教育部人文社会科学研究规划基金项目) (Grant no. 24YJA740056), the Shanghai Top Discipline of Type I (Foreign Languages and Literature, China (上海市I类高峰学科 (外国语言文学) 建设项目) (Grant no. 41004525/001) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (Grant no. 2019114030).

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Published Online: 2024-10-15
Published in Print: 2024-10-28

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