5.3 Meeting informants

The easiest way of finding informants is confining the research to an existing social group (cf. Milroy 1987b: 35; Tagliamonte 2006: 21). This way, one can be sure to find many informants that match the required categories. The so called 'snowball' or 'friend-of-a-friend' approach is a very popular strategy in this regard (Milroy and Gordon 2001: 32; Tagliamonte 2006: 21). An informant is asked about people that he or she would recommend as participants in the research. Another way of employing this method is starting out with someone who has some kind of influence (i.e. teachers, priests or community leaders and elders) and who can provide further contacts and introduce the researcher to various individuals in the community (cf. Milroy 2001: 34). However, one must be aware that the resulting acquaintances will very likely be limited to members of a certain social group; although, as mentioned above, this may be a desirable effect (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 22).

Last but not least, one could opt to take a more random approach, such as making door-to-door visits (cf. Tagliamonte 2006: 34) or choosing people from a telephone-book or an electoral register (described here). But the chances of cooperation are considerably lower this way.

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