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CHAPTER III METHOD OF RESEARCH
3.1. Research Design
In analysing the strategies and motives of language manipulation in the statements of Ted Bundy, this thesis uses a particular research method in order to
come out with the most accountable results. Originally, there are two kinds of methods which are often used in researches.
The first one is quantitative method, which involves data in form of numbers. The second one is qualitative method, which deals with thoughts, ideas, and descriptions.
However, according to Creswell 2002:17, there is a method which is less known than qualitative and quantitative methods. The method, which is the combination of
both qualitative and quantitative, is called the mixed methods. This thesis uses the mixed methods because it does not only analyse the
strategies and motives of language manipulation, but also determines the most dominant language manipulation strategy and motive in the data. Hence, to analyse
the strategies and motives of language manipulation, this thesis uses descriptive qualitative method. Subsequently, to determine the most dominant language
manipulation strategy and motive in the data, the quantitative method will be applied. The quantitative method will focus on finding the mode of the data.
According to Quantitative Method Study Guide book by Management College of South Africa 2013:34, the mode is obtained from a collection of scores by selecting
the score that occurs most frequently.
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Since this thesis relies on the study of pragmatics as its main focus, there are several most important reasons regarding why the mixed methods is considered the
best to be applied in this thesis. Creswell 2002:13-14 states that pragmatics is a linguistic discipline which is open to all kinds of researches, especially the mixed
methods because pragmatics itself does not limit its analysis to certain boundaries. Furthermore, mixed methods researchers look up to many approaches in collecting
and analysing data rather than subscribing to only one way either quantitave or qualitative.
3.2. Source of Data