Sociolinguistic prompts in the 21st century: Uniting past approaches and current directions

As technology (particularly smartphone and computer technology) has advanced, sociolinguistic methodology has likewise adapted to include remote data collection. Remote methods range from approximating the traditional sociolinguistic interview via synchronous video conferencing to developing new methods for asynchronous self-recording (Boyd et al., 2015; Leeman et al., 2020). In this paper, we take a close look at the question prompts sent to participants in an asynchronous, remote self-recording project (“MI Diaries”). We discuss how some of the techniques initially developed for obtaining a range of styles in a traditional in-person sociolinguistic interview can be fruitfully adapted to a remote context. Of this range of styles, we give particular focus to Narratives of Personal Experience (Labov & Waletzky, 1967), and provide an analysis of how the theme, style, and development of prompts can encourage narratives from participants. We end with a short discussion of prompts that have successfully elicited other speech styles, and prompts that are especially fruitful with child participants.