I often tell students that learning vocabulary (lexis) is a little bit like walking towards the horizon, it doesn’t matter how far you go with it, you will never reach completion: it is impossible to learn all the words and phrases in English (or any language). In blog post 2, I reflected on the language that I have learned and how it informs the language I now teach, however, to illustrate the above point re: the horizon – I can now reflect on the language I am learning and the language I am teaching (simultaneously).
Below are some vocabulary items which you may recognize (see figure 1) from the discourse of our PG Cert course, which I have also been teaching on the Advanced Research Methods for Postgraduate Marketing courses at the Fashion Business School at LCF.
Fig 1. Revision of vocabulary and new vocabulary. Language Development – Advanced Research Methods – Fashion Business School 20th Feb 2025
This vocabulary I have drawn from a key chapter of Saunders, Thornhill and Lewis (2023) – which deal with research philosophy and research design – it is this chapter which presents the infamous (in business post grad studies) heuristic the ‘Research Onion’ (see figure 2). As you can see (fig 1) I have also included the word heuristic, which was a lexical item I learned during my own postgraduate studies – and one which I now feel has application for the said ‘Onion’ and other such ideal type models and visualizations. Ontology was also a word I had learned in my own studies, epistemology I acquired through a session given at LCF: Where do you know from, which I went to specifically to learn this word, however, axiology and reflexology and others are new to me.
Figure 2. The Research Onion. (Saunders, Thornhill and Lewis, 2023, p. 13)
The development of research design requires reflexivity in transcending bias and contextualizing positionality (Archer, 2007; Yip, 2024; Creswell, 2013). Both teachers and learners need to explore a level of thinking which allows them to reflect both in (ontologically) and on (reflexively and epistemologically) their practice (Schon, 1983). This is a vocabulary which I am learning myself -and through sharing this with my learners, I can offer insights into my own learning process, whilst participating in theirs. Moreover, it reaffirms my belief that language can be acquired through use, and this is the true value of paraphrasing in academic writing – it helps us synthesize new knowledge until it comfortably becomes a part of our discourse (see fig 3).
Figure 3. Paraphrasing and summarizing academic texts. Language Development – Advanced Research Methods – Fashion Business School 20th Feb 2025
References
Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.
Creswell, J. W. (2013) Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. 3rd ed. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., and Thornhill, A. (2023) Research Methods for Business Students. 9th edition. Harlow: Pearson Education
Schön, D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Yip, S.Y. (2024) ‘Positionality and reflexivity: negotiating insider-outsider positions within and across cultures’ International Journal of Research & Method in Education Vol 47-Issue 3-pp.222-232