Statistical Methods in Language and Linguistic Research

Notwithstanding the growth of qualitative research, where narrative data and analysis
constitute the main concern for researchers, there is still a strong inclination on the part of
applied linguists to investigate language-related issues through quantitative methods using
statistical procedures. Accordingly, books like this one respond to a genuine need of such
researchers who investigate language-related topics. Quantitatively-oriented researchers used
to refer to statistical books written for a more general audience, in social sciences,
psychology or education, and not necessarily for researchers in linguistics and applied
linguistics. Recently, however, there have been research methods titles in applied linguistics
which address statistical procedures (e.g., Dornyei, 2007; Hatch & Farhady, 1982; Hatch &
Lazaraton, 1991; Mackey & Gass, 2005; Paltridge & Phakiti, 2010; Richards, Ross &
Seedhouse, 2012). Moreover, there have been titles exclusively devoted to statistical
procedures in applied linguistics (e.g., Bachman, 2002; Brown, 1988; Larson-Hall, 2010). It
is therefore interesting to see how the current title contributes to the existing resources