ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I discuss elicitation tasks used in variationist approaches to second language acquisition. In this area of scholarship, researchers have designed numerous data-collection instruments in order to investigate the use, selection, interpretation, and perception of variable linguistic structures. I highlight critical issues that affect the design and analysis of elicitation tasks and I offer guidance for eliciting data. I conclude with suggestions that future work that may help variationist second language acquisition (SLA) to advance its data-elicitation methods.
