Extending Research Horizons in Applied Linguistics - Between Interdisciplinarity and Methodological Diversity - Hadrian Aleksander Lankiewicz

Extending Research Horizons in Applied Linguistics - Between Interdisciplinarity and Methodological Diversity - Hadrian Aleksander Lankiewicz

The Application of Projective Techniques to Render Linguistic Repertoires of Plurilingual Language Learners at the Tertiary Level

Extending Research Horizons in Applied Linguistics - Between Interdisciplinarity and Methodological Diversity - Hadrian Aleksander Lankiewicz

Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej [+-]
Adam Mickiewicz University
Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej, D. Lit. in linguistics, PhD in applied linguistics and MA in English studies, is Associate Professor in the Department of Ecolinguistics and Communicology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Her research delves into applied linguistics and communication studies, focusing on professional communication, intercultural communication and specialised discourse. Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej has published over 40 academic papers, including a monograph on corporate communication, journal articles, book chapters and edited collections. The scholar is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences. She has also delivered guest lectures abroad, e.g. in Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. Before joining academia, she worked as a marketing and public relations specialist

Description

The chapter takes a look at projective techniques and their application across disciplines. It goes back to the psychoanalytical foundations of the concept and traces its historical development. Various types of projective techniques are presented, followed by a critical discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of their employment in research. The very concept of “projection” is attributed to Sigmund Freud (Breuer & Freud, 1895). It involves transferring (projecting) unconscious and frequently suppressed beliefs to another person or object in order to protect one’s ego. The term “projective techniques”, advanced by Frank (1939), might be basically defined as questioning techniques “that depersonalize the question to the respondent thereby desensitizing the respondent to the answer they give and deactivating their conscious defences about the answer they give” (Das, 2018: 10) The first applications of the techniques took place within the field of clinical psychology, where they were mostly used in psychoanalysis or personality assessment. Within a decade they were adopted in management and marketing research. In fact, nowadays their usage in consumer and marketing communication research is in its heyday and is often considered to be superior to other research methods (cf. Kaczmarek et al., 2013). To some extent, projection techniques have been also adopted in linguistic research (e.g. Labov attitude research), however, contemporarily their use in this field is rather marginalised. This could be explained by certain controversies surrounding their application in psychometric testing as well as a massive paradigm shift towards the quantitative research approach in the last decades of the previous century. The main premise of this chapter, however, is that their use in the field of applied linguistics (as defined by Evenson 2013) should be revisited, as they offer a unique potential for obtaining deep, meaningful responses from respondents. This is particularly valid in the case of research into sensitive issues such as, e.g. one’s ethnic, cultural or family background. The full potential of projective techniques will be illustrated by a study on the language portraits (Busch, 2018; Kusters & Meulder, 2019) of plurilingual language learners at the tertiary level of education, in order to show how they can reduce social desirability bias and enhance reflection and self-expression through verbal and visual modes.

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Citation

Wąsikiewicz-Firlej , Emilia. The Application of Projective Techniques to Render Linguistic Repertoires of Plurilingual Language Learners at the Tertiary Level. Extending Research Horizons in Applied Linguistics - Between Interdisciplinarity and Methodological Diversity. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 130-171 Sep 2023. ISBN 9781800503649. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=41512. Date accessed: 13 Nov 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.41512. Sep 2023

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