Research Method RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

The instruments of this study were the researcher and tokens of the verbs refuse and reject . The researcher was the instrument of this study because the researcher who was going to conduct the study. Ary, et al . 2010 stated that a human could be an instrument for a study. They added that “in qualitative studies, the human investigator is the primary instrument for gathering and analyzing of data” p.424. In addition, Lichtman 2013 said that the researcher became the primary instrument because he or she who collected and gatherred the information and the data. In this study, the data gathering was conducted by the researcher. Later, she would analyze the data for this study. The second instrument for conducting this study was the tokens of the verbs refuse and reject from COCA. The researcher would see the occurrences of the verbs refuse and reject in different registers, which could indicate the meaning and the context they were used. The verbs refuse and reject could have different collocations which distinguished the contexts from each other. The researcher would take note and highlight the information from the token related to the collocations. For instance, the tokens below showed the collocations of the target word which would be analyzed. 1 , when a state recognizes marriages, the federal government will discriminate and - and refuse benefits to some of the married people that the state recognizes and not others. COCA: ABC This Week 2 understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position as we find it unacceptable politically, nationally, and ethically. Militarizing COCA: Middle East Q 42

E. Data Analysis Technique

In qualitative research, the first stage in analyzing data was organizing to ease the data retrieved Ary, et al. , 2010. The data had to be put into a form ready for analyzing. In organizing, the data was classified. The researcher put the data into the table of classification. In this study, the researcher classified the data into two. The first data consisted of the tokens of the verb refuse and the second one consisted of the tokens of the verb reject . After doing it, the data on the tables were interpreted. Ary, et al . 2010 defined interpretation as producing the meaning and providing explanation. Ary, et al . 2010 added that “the quality of the interpretation depends on the background, perspective, knowledge, and theoretical orientation of the researcher and the intellectual skill he or she brings to the task ” p.490. The researcher verified what he or she knew was supported by the data. In this study, the tokens of the verbs refuse and reject will be interpreted. Here, it would be known more about the meanings of each verb in the tokens. The researcher would investigate every token to comprehend the meaning in which the verbs occurred, since there were some definitions of each verb. After that, the researcher picked 100 tokens for each verb to give the examples and analyze them deeper. Based on Ary, et al . 2010, “there is no general rule to include in a qualitative study” p.429. Those 100 tokens each verb were enough to know the use of the synonymous verbs in the daily life context. Sampling, which was selecting participants, was important in a qulitative study Ary, et al ., 2010. The participants in this study also referred to the tokens of the verbs refuse and reject . 43 The researcher selected purposive samples , which was sufficient to provide minimum insight and understanding of what the researcher was studying Ary, et al ., 2010. Ary, et al .2010 said that purposive samples had to be relevant to the topic of the study. To do the sampling, the researcher used her experience and knowledge, specially which was related to this study. Thus, the tokens used had to represent all meanings of the verbs refuse and reject . Moreover, the collocations of the verbs would present the meanings and contexts they took place. The analysis would be conducted based on the definitions on the dictionaries and the related references mentioned in Chapter II.

F. Research Procedure

There were six steps to conduct this study. Ary, et al . 2010 gave the steps to conduct qualitative study. The first step was specifying the phenomenon to be investigated. In this study, the researcher wanted to investigate the synonymous verbs, refuse and reject by corpus study. The researcher was going to find out the frequencies of the verbs refuse and reject and the collocations of the verbs. The collocations would show the meanings of those verbs which might have similar or different contexts in use. By the guidance from Ary, et al . 2010, the second step was selecting the source from which the observations were to be made. The researcher chose COCA as the source of the data in this study. The researcher used a laptop to browse COCA site to take the tokens of the verbs refuse and reject . Next, the researcher would copy the tables of the tokens because the tokens could not be downloaded.