This chapter explores qualitative research design with a focus on its application in applied linguistics. You will be introduced to key qualitative research designs, including ethnography, grounded theory, case study, narrative inquiry, and discourse studies. The chapter also discusses discourse analysis, examining subtypes such as conversational analysis, interaction analysis, and critical discourse analysis. Through this chapter, you will gain a solid understanding of the distinctive features of each design, learn how they differ, and develop the ability to identify when a particular design is most appropriate. By the end, you will know how to critically evaluate various qualitative research designs, understanding their strengths, limitations, and applicability to different research questions in applied linguistics.

This chapter provides practical and theoretical insights into corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), an increasingly popular framework for studying language-in-use. By drawing upon both discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, CADS combines methods of text analysis commonly perceived as qualitative and quantitative, respectively. Despite challenges, the main appeal lies in CADS’ ability to reconcile close linguistic analyses with the more broad-ranging analyses made possible by using corpus linguistic methods to analyse language. In addition to providing theoretical insights into CADS, this chapter examines what CADS involves from a practical point of view, e.g. by discussing specific corpus outputs, examples of ways in which qualitative and quantitative approaches to discourse analysis are synergized and triangulated, and the extent to which CADS differs from other kinds of discourse analysis relying on one or more non-corpus-informed approaches in discourse analysis. Interdisciplinary applications in CADS are also considered.