Photographic Documentation as a Mode of Data Collection in Qualitative Research: A Case of Pilot Testing in Linguistic Landscape

Qualitative research is known as an exploratory research, in which the common modes of data collection are interviews, focus group discussions and observational methods. Though there is a large amount of data available on how to conduct qualitative research through the above-mentioned three modes, little do we know about photographic documentation as a rather new and under researched mode of data collection in qualitative research. This paper attempts to explore photographic documentation as a primary mode of data collection in linguistic landscape. Linguistic landscape is a very popular and thriving area of research in applied linguistics. It is the visibility and salience of languages in public spaces, most commonly conducted on public and private signboards. The usual norm of conducting research in linguistic landscape is to click pictures of signboards and conduct an analysis of the language used on those signboards. This paper discusses the pilot testing of this mode of data collection, i.e. photographic documentation. After clicking pictures of public signboards from two public parks in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan (following a very systematic approach), mediated discourse analysis was applied on it. Mediated discourse analysis is a specialized form of discourse analysis, having its roots in critical discourse analysis. Mediated discourse analysis observes the relationship between discourse and action. According to Scollon & Scollon (2003), we can only fully interpret the meaning of public texts by considering the social and physical world that surrounds them. The photographic data collected was analyzed at three levels; the text, the physicality of signboards and the social world in which they are displayed. This study suggests ways in improving this mode and procedure of data collection as to get notable findings in a qualitative research on linguistic landscape.