Observer's paradox
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The observer's paradox refers to phenomena where the observation of an event or experiment is influenced by the presence of the observer/investigator.
[edit] In linguistics
In linguistics, an observer doing field work in a language can influence the speech of the experimental subjects by his or her presence. The term was coined in 1966 by sociolinguist William Labov in the context of studying the usage of African American Vernacular English in Harlem. In particular, people in a community may speak in a higher register to an outsider (i.e., the investigator), which results in the loss or masking of features such as dialect, accent, or slang. Labov's method to circumvent the paradox and obtain casual speech was to record conversations among peers. Further, Labov discovered that subjects tended to use casual vernacular when asked to respond to question that evoked a strong emotional response.
Research performed since Labov's initial study have shown that features of the observer can worsen the observer's paradox. Some factors that have been cited are differences in age, gender, and race between the field worker and the interviewee.
The term has been extended to other subfields of linguistics. In experimental phonetics, a speaker who is asked to speak into a microphone may pronounce their words more carefully. This can potentially lead to hypercorrection.
[edit] Other examples
- In photojournalism and documentary photography, the photographer often attempts to avoid photos that appear posed or staged.
- In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that deals with the issue of quantum indeterminacy.
[edit] References
- Patricia Cukor-Avila, "Revisiting the Observer's Paradox." American Speech 75.3 (2000) 253-254.
- William Labov, "Some Further Steps in Narrative Analysis."
