Exploring Language Problems through Q‐Sorting

This chapter discusses a method for researching LPP, Q-sorting (Watts and Stenner 2012), which in author's work linking to deliberation conferencing (Lo Bianco and Aliani 2013). Q is highly adaptable to the different circumstances, settings, and needs of agencies commissioning policy advice, and also illuminating when applied to research. This chapter focuses on this discussion of the novice researcher, the PhD student, or the experienced researcher wishing to explore the possibilities that Q offers LPP. It stresses that addition of deliberation conferences, or facilitated dialogues, linking the findings of Q method to solution-seeking discussions, moves beyond academic analysis of LPP into the realm of assisting various authorities to devise, implement, and evaluate language policies. The method of Q-sorting, commonly called Q-methodology, consists of scrutiny of attitudes, studied via the mathematical process of inverted factor analysis.