A2 Language computer room lesson and Tuesday's lesson - conclusions and evaluations

Hopefully healthinesses,

I've been in and out of hospital this week with a resurgence of the chest infection that had me off last time. That's what you get for not getting properly better before you come back. Sigh.

I'm on massive amount of painkillers so I hope this makes sense.

It's time to work on conclusions and evaluations. It makes sense to combine these because this is where you get some sophisticated context marks for AO3 and evaluate (AO1) your methodology (AO2).

Conclusion: tentatively offer alternative interpretations as to why the most significant or interesting findings seem to be the case in the context of specific GRAPEs, giving an overview. Don't repeat what you have already said if you have taken an evaluative approach as you've gone along (well done); instead, try and give more of an overview of how aspects you have looked at link together, and say how far your hypotheses are supported/contradicted (NOT PROVEN/DISPROVEN!).

Either seperately as your Evaluation or, if it makes sense to explain as you go along what you can/cannot tell from the data you have collected, evaluate at each point what you would need to have done differently to make the findings appropriately reliable/comparable/generalisable or even more ethical if you had problems with that. You can suggest what you might do to extend the investigation if you were to take it further if there is something interesting or more convincing remaing to explore with more time/word-count/funding etc.

Try and get in aspects like evaluating which were the most/least successful ways of approaching/quantifying the data and why.

Try not to be self-critical but do be self-reflective - you need to try not to put yourselves down but instead be thoughtful about the difficulties you faced.

If you can't be working on that, work on media texts or search through my archives for wider reading on Language Change issues, leaving comments to show you've been there, please.

Don't forget to continue working on basic grammar - there's a featured post on my blog and others further down to help.

There's also some interesting other wider reading available to comment on.

Email me if you need support,

good luck,

Halla

Association of words with skin colour - the doll test, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The doll test has been around a long time - in the 1940s Dr Kenneth Clark and Dr Mamie Clark took four identical dolls (apart from the colour of their 'skin') and asked children about the personalities that they associated with them. This video done recently reflects the findings then. Watch it then read on.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that it matters what words are used to describe something or someone as the words used not only reflect attitudes but actually affect attitudes; when we hear or read something it affectsour impression of the thing/person being described (hence why schools are moving from 'naughty' to describe the child's behaviour rather than the child themselves to starting to ban the word altogether to stop an association with the word from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: 'I have done naughty things... I do naughty things... I will always do naughty things.')  In the doll test we see the attitudes that have been communicated to these children but we also see them using them, reinforcing those attitudes in themselves and in others. The antithetical pairings dumb/smart, good/bad, pretty/ugly etc. are evaluative adjectives (they are purely subjective judgements rather than objective descriptions).

These children were 3-7 years old so it shows how quickly attitudes to race are embedded. It breaks my heart when some of the chlidren realise that they are being asked to identify with the doll of their colour, having said such harsh things about it - either when they try to avoid doing so or still identify with it quickly despite that. Look up the recent viral video of the children crying who'd been given black dolls with a relative laughing about it - highly offensive so you can choose to read the commentary people are making on it rather than watching the video itself.

Attitudes are communicated in more ways than just words, of course: paralinguistics, the way people are treated, the roles you see people taking in society (or their absence) etc. But words are powerful and they do matter. Be conscious of the linguistic choices of yourselves and others.

We can't be 'colourblind' because we need to be conscious of attitudes to race affecting the language around us and actively try to shape more genuine representations of people.

Creepy holiday songs - gender

I don't agree with all of her choices but I chose the final one myself as soon as I saw the title - watch this YouTube clip from 5:15 to see for yourself. I feel a chill down my spine but not because it's cold outside!

Media text style model on football commentators' cliches

I am not the target audience and I did not enjoy this piece but it is a good example of how to talk about linguistic ideas in an entertaining(?) and accessible way, although it seems to me to be trying too hard to be funny and clever. What do you think?

Calculating how funny Dr Seuss is - investigations, CLA

Here's an article from the Guardian about a mathematical analysis of Dr seuss's 'non-words' (this is a good alternative to 'nonsense' which implies you can't understand it). The Canadian professor, Chris Westbury, suggests that the entropy of words (how like high-frequency words they are because of letters included and familiar letter combinations) is an indicator of how funny readers will find words (low frequency/'low entropy' inclusions and combinations, the research suggests, are inherently funnier).

What I feel is not considered is the placing of those words in sentences which might make them more or less predictable and, significantly for a child's book, the phonemic combinations rather than the graphemic ones.

Post with what you like about Dr Seuss and any response to this article.

Editing investigation analyses tips and example (A2 computer room lesson 4/1/16)

Happy New Year, merrinesses!

Welcome back! Assessment week joy to you all! We will be doing the CLA half of an exam paper on Friday so revise all your terms and theory, little by little, all week.

Today I will be doing feedback on the analyses (notice the pluralisation is the same as hypothesis/hypotheses). Get a peer to read your media text (on-screen or hard copy, which might be easier), make some improvements and hand it in tomorrow - it won't be marked if it is late, remember. As soon as you can, start working on improving your analysis. Here are some general points for you all to consider (ask me any questions if you need clarification):

• the intros still need work (and it was very hard for me to know if your points were relevant to your title/hypothesis if you didn't give them in); ensure that you tell me in a clear and engaging way all I need to know to understand what you have chosen to look at and why it is a worthy investigation (why it's interesting). Also, show how your knowledge of theory leads you to choose an interesting hypothesis, and show how you will test it (which techniques you will be looking for, what kind of data and subjects you have chosen etc.)
• methodologies still need data description tables to set out exactly what you collected and clarify how you will refer to it in a way that reminds me what each transcript/letter/comment is e.g. 'transcript one' isn't as clear as 'T1rocket' to refer to the transcript of Zach telling his rocket story because I won't remember what transcript one refers to without a clue
• introduce the analysis so that you have a chance to evaluate why you are starting by looking at (for instance) sentence moods rather than non-standard English - it really helps if you have quantified your data in ways that relate to your hypothesis so that you can show what is most significant and why (ask Josie if you can see her approach)
• Sub-headings to organise the analysis are vital - they could be techniques, theories, key questions or another organisational structure you can think of but I don't want an essay, I want an investigation report (that allows you to hit the criteria of a logical/systematic approach) - each section might need another mini intro to establish the section's significance 
• Within sections, ensure you have cohesion by using discourse markers at the start of each new paragraph e.g. in contrast, similarly, subsequently etc. (read my 'bad writing' post below this one to check you are not committing any other faux pas). If you change focus in a section, make it clear how and why.
• Many, many more terms needed! AO1 marks are almost exclusively for terminology used consistently and with accuracy (but also clear organisation and well-structured PEE). Choose aspects to investigate that allow you to closely analyse the terminology you can apply to significant quotes in context, tentatively exploring the relevance of theory and context as to why language might have been used in that way (and tentatively offering alternative interpretations).
• Relevance - I got tired of writing 'rel' on paragraphs that weren't closely linked to the title/hypothesis - either link them explicitly or leave them out
• Footnotes - more use of footnotes to cite theory (e.g. if you mention 'accommodation' you might need to footnote it as Goffman's CAT theory and give the year so I can refer to your bibliography and see how that is defined in your source (or at least check that you have a source!) or define your interpretation of particular terms so you can investigate their use with your limited resources e.g. how are you defining 'emotive' language that relates to 'feelings' to test Tannen's difference theory?
• Speaking of which, more range of theory please - if you are looking at CLA, I am sure you will also find gender or power theories relevant to apply as you go (don't forget to footnote them and put sources in your bibliography where possible) and you should evaluate how far your data supports/contradicts them all the way through, challenging theory (you have to show a 'range' of theory tentatively applied to get the higher marks)
• Quantify where possible 
• Don't forget Harvard-referenced bibliographies for the investiation and the media text
• <sigh> and please, please stop using 'incorrect' and 'wrong' and remember to use 'non-standard'

Here's a checklist for each paragraph (systematic use of all of these is vital for the higher marks):

• Discourse markers and clarification of the significance of what you are looking at
• Overview of how the technique/concept you are examining is used throughout (ideally using quantification to support your interpretation)
•  3-6 terms accurately applied to an exemplifying quote (or more than one) to explore how language is used in the context of the whole piece of data or the whole data pool
• Tentative links to theory and wider context, offering alternative interpretations and evaluating the limitations of your data if necessary
• Clarification of the relationship of what you are examining/discussing to your title/hypothesis

Here is an exemplar paragraph from my own analysis of the use of a caregiver's interrogatives (with the hypothesis that interaction through interrogatives supports language development as per Bruner/Vygotski) in my interactions with Zach (M=mother, C=child). (I can't do superscript for the footnotes so they appear as standard numerals directly after the word.) It is better to develop fewer ideas in more depth:

In addition to the open questions to prompt the development of the discourse with a child-led focus, M also uses closed questions, seemingly for transactional and regulatory purposes, however some of these also seem to have a use in developing independence of language use. In table 6 the closed questions are subdivided on the basis of interrogatives that require an answer that offers information (transactional e.g. "would you like juice or milk") and interrogatives that are related to compliance (regulatory e.g. "that wasn't a good idea (.) was it"). These regulatory interrogatives are mainly (4 out of 5 times over the three transcripts) phrased as a declarative with a tag question that is often (3 out f 4 times) not contradicted and reinforces the caregiver's role as the more powerful/knowledgeable participant1. What seems significant is the singular time (1 out of 5 within this small data pool, which might be anomalous in terms of a much larger sample but is here a quite significant 20%) that the regulatory approach is challenged. In T3dinner, C counters the regulatory admonishment "you shouldn't talk with your mouth full (.) should you" with "silly Mummy (.) you asked me a question at the wrong time". The use of the adjectives "silly" and "wrong" seem to seek to reverse the role of the powerful and less-powerful participants. The designation "silly" is characteristic of M's speech (used by M to C on 3 occasions over the three transcripts, along with the similar uses of evaluative adjectives "bossy" (x2) and "lovely" (x2) and therefore could be said to have been modelled frequently and it may or may not have been made clear that this is adult language not suitable for a child to reply with). These adjectives normally show the power behind the discourse of the caregiver to evaluate the behaviour of the child and potentially punish or reward (instrumental power). Although C does not possess this power, the use of this diminutive adjective "silly" to admonish M and the supporting declarative (including another judgemental adjective "wrong") to justify it show the ability of a 3-year-old to utilise adult forms that have been modelled for him for his own purposes, perhaps to try and level the asymmetric power in a circumstance where he may feel justified to stand up for himself (his observation about the circumstances is accepted as truthful, or at least convincing, by M when she remarks "lawyered!"). Her use of the exclamatory perhaps also acknowledges the sophistication of his response which may effectively raise his influential power in this situation and encourage the mother to consider her use of admonishments more carefully, suggesting that Fairclough's notion of unequal encounters2, if it includes changing power balances,  is supported to a degree here (while M remains the more powerful participant, C has clearly raised his status in this adjacency pair). C's choice to challenge M's rebuke also suggests that child-led discourse strategies may indeed have encouraged the development of independence and sophisticated discourse strategies even in so young a child as he is able to use structures modelled for him to achieve his own purposes. It is not clear whether the use of the unmitigated FTA3 is finely judged (the verb "lawyered" seems to show an appreciation of C's bald-on-record strategy) or only accepted because of M's likely awareness that children so young are too egotistical4 to see where they might cause offence and therefore cannot choose to use more negative face5 approaches to someone with instrumental power over them. This might be the cause of the shocked humour implicit in the minor sentence "lawyered!" which may indicate a degree of offence which M puts aside by making a remark using low-frequency lexis that C will not understand the implications of and may be purely to manage her own feelings of affront at being challenged through humour; perhaps the remark even came from an awareness of being recorded (the observer's paradox) and was intended for the implied audiences beyond the dinner table who are linguists who would understand the connotations of cleverness and manipulativeness inherent in the noun "lawyer". M may be acknowledging C's progress as an influential speaker who can assert his own personality and sense of fairness by challenging her, maybe even with pride at the effectiveness of her own modelling.

I would probably divide that into several paragraphs for ease of reading but I wanted to show you what a unit of analysis should include and how in-depth you can go as long as you have a narrow enough focus on how you are going to test your hypothesis (find a way to leave out anythign you can't discuss in depth). I would have a slightly longer section before this on open questions and a much shorter section afterwards on how little significance the transactional questions seem to have.

Bad writing (Mashable's 15 words you should eliminate from your writing and my own bug-bears)

I don't see too many of Mashable's choices and there are always reasons for using words (for specific effects after consideration of the audience, purposes and form) but it is useful to reflect on your writing habits by looking at whether you use these or what else you might be doing out of habit that it would be wise to adjust.

You might want to consider these no-nos that I often see (my personal writing bugbears):

• a lot (and, worse, alot) - there are so many alternatives out there that sound more impressive or precise so use only if you are creating a specifically informal register
• using tautology (saying the same thing twice) - one of those uses is redundant unless you want to break the rules for emphasis. This can happen easily e.g. I think it is maybe... (both "I think" and "maybe" introduce tentativity)
• run on sentences - many students, even at A2, seem to think you can blur sentence boundaries by just using a comma (look up comma splicing - there is help on grammar sites like Grammar Bytes) or even continuing into the next sentence with no punctuation. Nearly as bad is lack of clarity by using conjunctions to join too many ideas together
• long paragraphs - lack of planning leads to lack of focus and long, impenetrable paragraphs which give readers/markers headaches; change paragraph every time you change time, place, topic or speaker (TiPTopS). Good PEE for those As and Bs should be well-structured so PLAN!
• no throughline - paragraphs should be linked by discourse markers at the start of each new paragraph; they show how ideas flow one from another, link, or contrast - what does the reader need to know to help them follow what you are saying and prove to them that you've carefully planned how to present your ideas?
• thesaurusitis - using a low-frequency word to look clever is only effective if it means precisely what you think it means and adds clarity: I've read essays and media texts that were incomprehensible because words from the thesaurus had been used as if they were interchangable. Read widely to get a better vocabulary - don't rely on a thesaurus if you are not sure of the shades of meaning created by different word choices
• homophone errors - if you get words from the following circled in your work, make sure you know the rules and check for accuracy until you are sure you are consistently getting them right: to/two/too, their/there/they're, weather/whether, practice/practise, affect/effect, who's/whose
• missing/superfluous apostrophes - even A-grade students sometimes don't have the rules quite right or don't check their work properly and it's important. Missing possessive apostrophes are the most common (or apostophes in the wrong place in plural possessives e.g. it should be "all the neighbours' houses" - since the noun "neighbours" is a plural, the apostrophe comes after the s). I also see superfluous apostrophes added mistakenly into plurals and added after decades/centuries or initialisms: 1980s, DVDs, apples are correct, 1980's, DVD's, apple's are incorrect.

I'll stop there, or thinking about these might make my head explode!