THE LANGUAGE OF

RESEARCH
The Characteristics of the Language of
Research
■ Research is searching for the truth in a systematic way or in a
scientific method. Doing things in this manner means going into a
world of science that deals mostly with facts, principles, theories,
generalization, methods, and the like. Existing within the bounds of
science that is quite different from other subjects because of its
inclination to special or abstract terms. Research is likewise pregnant
with extraordinary terms because this has a language of its own.
■ ENDOWED with special knowledge: meaning, ideas that are
applicable to a particular purpose, you possess a certain expertise
that only people belonging to your area of specialization find
understandable and easy to relate themselves with. Your expertise or
special knowledge in research cause you to use your words, phrases,
and other language structures whos meanings and uses are familiar
with or common only to those engaged in research. For non-
researchers, unless they purposely read books on research, the
language of research appears as a jargon. Jargons are terms
considered as technical because these are commonly used only by
people belonging to the same field of specialization.
Research–Language Formation
■ The specialized forms of the language of research
are caused by the following factors (Trochim 2006);
1. Multisyllable words
■ Some terms reflecting the inherent characteristics of research as s
scientific methid are made up of a number of syllables such as the
following:
• theoritical–concepts
• empirical–observable
• probabilistic–uncertain
• quantitative–numerical
• qualitative–opinionated
• scientific–systematic
• inquiry–investigation
2. Types and forms of question
■ Research has its own types of question. It has to ask question that
describe, show relationships, and give reasons behind the occurence
of something. For instance, for a qualitative reasearch, questions to
be asked must elicit views, emotions, or opinions of people.
Quantitative research, on the other hand, ask question about the
exact number, percentages, or frequency of things. Informative
questions rather than yer-or-no questions are the appropriate
questions to ask in research.
3. Span of time covered by the research.
■ Owing to the length of time—months or years—that takes place in a
study, research introduced the terms cross-sectional and longitudinal
studies. Cross-sectional study involves a one-time collection of data in
a span of time; longitudinal study, repeated collection of data for the
purpose of finding out the changes of patterns over time.
4. Variable relationships
■ Concerning itself with wether or not a variable has effects on another
variable, based on cause-effect relationships and on a certain pattern
that may result in positive or negative relationship, research came out
with the following terms for variables:

a. Independent variables–the cause of something

b. Dependent variables–bears the effect of the independent variable
c. Extraneuos variable–extra or unexpected variable ceopping up outside
the research design
d. Confounding variable–unstable variable
5. Formulating Hypothesis
■ Forming hypothesis indicates the staging of a research. It signals the
occurence of a scientific or invertigative way doing things. Hence,
there are these terms: null hypothesis for guessing negative results of
the research and alternative hypothesis for positive result.

6. Data
■ These are facts, information, or logically derived forms of knowledge
that are called qualitative data if they are verbally and subjectively
expressed; quantitative data, if they are numerically and objectively
expressed.
7. Unit of Analysis
■ The subject or object of your research study makes up one major
entity and this may either be one of the following:

a. Individual, group, artefact (painting, book, travelogue)

b. Geographical unit (municipality, province, country)
c. Social interaction (husband-wife, teacher-learner, employer-
employee)