C. Methods of Data Analysis
Wimmer and Dominick 2010: 119 state that data analysis in qualitative studies is done early in the collection process and continues throughout the
project. This means that in this type of research when the researchers conduct the data collection, they actually have started conducting the data analysis as well. In
this research, the researcher employed the content analysis of spoken words in the TV Series and written text of the TV Series script to find the types, speech
features, and functions of gossip created by the female characters. According to Krippendorff in Stemler, 2001: 3, content analysis is a research technique for
making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context. The following presents the steps of the data analysis of this study.
1. The researcher identified the errors in the data collection to gain appropriate
data. 2.
The researcher classified gossip by the female characters in Gossip Girl Season 1 TV Series.
3. The researcher analyzed the types, speech features and functions of gossip
which appear through the gossip employed by the female characters. 4.
The researcher drew conclusions for the research questions.
D. Trustworthiness of the Data
Establishing trustworthiness ensures the quality of the findings. Many different strategies are applied in qualitative research to convince the readers
about the validity of the research. Validity, on the other hand, is one of the strengths of qualitative research, and it is based on determining whether the
findings are accurate from the standpoint of the researcher, the participant, or the readers of an account Creswell, 2009: 191.
One common technique to improve the quality of trustworthiness is triangulation. According to Yin in Creswell, 2009: 190, there are four main
types of triangulation: by source – data are collected from different sources; by
methods – different data collection strategies are used such as individual
interviews and participant observation; by researcher – which involves the use of
more than one researcher to analyze the data, develop and test the identification; and by theories
– multiple theories and perspective are considered during data analysis and interpretation. The researcher applied the triangulation technique by
sources and by other researchers in this research. To gain the credibility, the researcher analyzed the data in a deep
observation. The researcher was convinced that the data collected were suitable with the objectives of this study by applying triangulation technique. The
researcher used sources and researchers technique in this study. The sources such as books, papers, articles, and some others related to the gossip were used in this
study. The researcher also triangulated the data by asking the supervisors, prominent lecturers who are keen in sociolinguistics field, and also some
colleagues of English language and literature majoring in linguistics as peer reviewers to confirm the data collected.
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