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https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v5i1.371 

Book Review 

 

Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: A Practical Guide, 2nd Edition 

 

Brian Paltridge and Aek Phakiti 

London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 590 pages 

ISBN 987-1-4725-2501-7 

 

Reviewed by 

 

Michael H. Landry 

University of British Columbia 

 

In the latest edition of Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: A Practical Guide, authors 

Brian Paltridge and Aek Phakiti bring together 31 of the leading scholars in the fields of applied 

linguistics and additional language acquisition to provide a contemporary overview of 

approaches and methods used to explore a wide array of research topics. The book, which 

consists of 31 chapters in total, is divided into two parts.  

 

Part 1, “Research Methods and Approaches,” consists of 16 chapters. Each one is 

dedicated to exploring a different approach to conducting research. Although each chapter 

explores a unique approach, each one follows the same structure. Most chapters in Part 1 contain 

an initial overview of the research methodology. In this section, the focus is on methodology, or 

the theoretical principles that guide the research, less on the methods—or the actual things we do 

to collect and analyse data. Overviews of each methodology are followed by procedural 

considerations and are closed by a sample study. A list of additional readings is included at the 

end of each chapter.  

 

 Part 1 begins with the main authors providing an overview of the landscape of the 

different ways information in applied linguistics has been collected. Continuing on, Chapters 2, 

3, and 4 highlight the key elements of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research 

analysis respectively. The novice researcher would be well-served by reading these first four 

chapters followed by Chapter 14 on ethics and Chapter 15 on developing research projects. The 

more experienced researcher might find greater value in exploring the more specialized research 

approaches such as case studies (Chapter 7), critical research (Chapter 9), and research synthesis 

(Chapter 13).  

 

 Part 2, “Areas of Research,” consists of 15 chapters dedicated to presenting clear 

examples of how different areas of applied linguistics are typically investigated. Each chapter 

contains a short overview of the respective topic, which is followed by a description of the 

methodologies and approaches typically applied to investigate the respective topic. Each author 

provides a sample study to help bring everything together. As in Part 1, each chapter closes with 

a list of additional readings. The layout of the book is quite handy as it affords the chapter 

authors in Part 2 the opportunity to relate the contents contained within their chapters to key 

points referenced earlier in Part 1. This layout acts as a form of spaced retrieval, thereby, 

compelling the reader to return to those earlier points and consider them in a new context. In 

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BC TEAL Journal Volume 5 Number 1 (2020): 123–124 

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particular, Phakiti’s chapter on quantitative research (Chapter 2) and Holliday’s chapter on 

qualitative research (Chapter 3) are referred to in several of the chapters which constitute Part 2. 

This approach certainly helps the reader connect the overall content to concrete examples.  

 

 Similar to Part 1, in Part 2, the reader has the freedom to delve into the areas of interest to 

them. Overall, the scope of the topics in Part 2 is broad, and there is something for researchers 

interested in researching language and skills, socio-cultural elements, and teacher education. As 

an EAP instructor who is interested in EAL learners’ writing and intercultural communicative 

competence in the EAP classroom, I was naturally drawn to Hyland’s chapter on researching 

writing (Chapter 19) and Block’s chapter on researching language and identity (Chapter 30). 

Similarly, as a professional development workshop designer, I gained great insight from Borg’s 

two chapters on researching teachers’ beliefs and researching teacher education (Chapters 5 and 

6 respectively).  

 

 Although each contributor presents a unique aspect of the field, there are key themes 

which emerge throughout and contribute to the overall coherence of the book. In particular, the 

reader is left with a genuine appreciation of the importance of bracketing, which is the process of 

self-reflection during which scholars examine and remove their biases from the research process 

so that those biases do not impact the analysis of the results, and the need to place ethics at the 

fore of any research project. In addition, there is a reminder throughout that the methods are 

determined by the problem. Finally, the authors place a high value on methodological 

transparency, reflexivity, and employing a multi-method approach to data collection to enhance 

rigour.  

 

 In summary, the authors do an excellent job of taking a huge amount of information and 

truncating it into manageable chunks without skimping on the details. This efficient conveying of 

key information makes the book required reading for anyone serious about conducting research 

in the field of applied linguistics. Providing an introduction to approaches in Part 1 and 

elaborating via concrete examples in Part 2 contribute to the overall flow of the book. In 

addition, the inclusion of a variety of resources, including books, journal articles, and websites, 

in the additional reading sections of each chapter also lends to the overall accessible nature of the 

book, making it less overwhelming for readers who might be intimidated by the stylistic features 

of some journal articles in the field. The well-chosen panel of authors presents a case for either a 

cover-to-cover or à la carte approach to reading this publication. These content and format 

strengths, bolstered by the easy-to-read nature of the writing, make it a great choice for novice 

researchers who are looking to embark on exploring topics related to additional language 

acquisition and need a combination of theoretical grounding and techniques for data collection. 

For more experienced researchers, it stands as a reminder that the field is still evolving, and the 

numerous cited projects and suggested readings inspire the reader to continue to challenge and 

provoke future research design, implementation, and evaluation. 

 

 
The BC TEAL Journal is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

Copyright rests with the authors. 

 

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