LINKING THEORY AND ANALYSIS
    Discovering Patterns
    Grounded Theory Method
    Semiotics
    Conversational Analysis
 

Social science data analysis seeks to find patterns in social life and to explain them: representing data analysis and theory, respectively.  We want to learn what the patterns are and for them to make sense.

Sometimes the search for patterns focusses on variables, examining those variables across many cases.  Other times, we look deeply into a single case, examining the interplay of variables for that single person.

The Grounded Theory Method, as we saw in Chapter 10, is a deliberately inductive method, seeking the emergence of theories from a careful analysis of observations.  This is in distinct contrast to the testing of theoretically-generated hypotheses, as is often the case in experiments.

Semiotics is the "science of signs."  It examines the symbolism and meanings embedded in language, etiquette, music, and many other elements of culture.

Conversation analysis, related to ethnomethodology, looks for the implicit assumptions and structures contained in the ways we converse with one another.