Case study research in applied linguistics (review)

Case study research in applied linguistics is a monograph on research methodology. The author's claim on page vii that no single research guide has so far been available on case studies nicely justifies the need for such a volume in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). While the main audience of the book is university students, experienced researchers and advanced scholars will also find the book beneficial, as they may gain more insight into the qualitative research tradition in general and case study research methodology in particular. The book comprises six chapters, appended with a comprehensive reference list of 20 pages, and separate author and subject indices.

The first chapter serves as a general introduction to the book. It presents theoretical and methodological foundations of case study, reviews illustrative examples from influential studies, and offers practical advice on conducting such research. The author provides an example from her earlier research (Duff 1993a) both to establish a context for the volume and to illustrate the complex steps involved in doing case study. As such, most of the contents of the first chapter consist of a recasting of Duff (1993a, 1993b). One problem in this chapter is the pre-mature comparison of Jim, a Cambodian learner whom the author studied, with Ge (a similar case studied by another researcher). As a full description of Jim's social, political and family life is missing (gradually being added throughout the text), introducing excerpts from his performance before presenting a complete picture of the case to the reader seems inappropriate.

Chapter 2 is intended to define case study research from different methodological viewpoints. It describes the origin of this type of research and defends its position as a legitimate method, drawing on its advantages and "claimed" disadvantages such as lack of generalizability (pp. 21, 47), and highlights the role it has played in the development of applied linguistics and SLA. The chapter is a fine scholarly literature review of the significance and historical development of case study research in various disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, medicine, and journalism. The interchangeable use of the terms approach, paradigm, method, strategy, and design to denote the same concept without clearly defining them (for example, on pp. 21, 28, 34, 36, 42, and 108) may prove problematic, especially for a novice audience. Readers are referred to McKay (2006) for more information on the distinction between the above concepts. Another concern is that, in an attempt to define qualitative research technically, the author uses words such as post-positivism, interpretivism, dialectical, and dialogical, which are more difficult to grasp than the notion of qualitative research itself.

Chapter 3 serves to illustrate the use of case study research in applied linguistics. The author does an excellent job of categorizing the studies into traditional or first-generation versus more recent or contemporary. Whereas the focus of the former category was on linguistics and social-psychological issues in naturalistic situations, the latter focuses on post-structural, socio-cultural, and anthropological aspects of L2 learning; bilingual and multilingual learner identities; and race and gender-related issues. Accordingly, the chapter offers a concise yet comprehensive overview of the gradual but strong development of the case study research method. However, most of the studies reviewed have been conducted on the American continent, a bias that the author does acknowledge at several points. It would also have helped the reader had the author separated the discussion of L1 research from that on L2 research throughout the chapter. Finally, the review would have gained in comprehensiveness if it had included studies of language loss not only in L1 but also in L2 contexts.

Chapters 4 and 5 collectively instruct the reader on the process of conducting case studies, including research questions and objectives; design, case selection and sampling; data elicitation and ethics (Chapter 4); approaches to transcription, analysis, representation and interpretation of data; and criteria for overall evaluation of...