Computer room lesson Friday 4th and Monday 7th November

Cherisheds,

welcome back (Friday group) and hello again (Monday group)!

I will be talking to each of you individually about investigations to ensure you are all getting started appropriately. If you don't have your data, you can work on your draft of your introduction (see my post on intros). If you do have it, you will still need to work on your intro at some point but it might be better to look at your data today (see my post on annotations) so that you can ask me any burning questions.

Please look at my post on feedback from the banana and robot transcripts briefly now (in case you have any questions) and then in more detail in your independent study time.

If you need to switch it up, do some grammar work, learn some terminology or work on another of your targets. There can be no slacking off!

Investigation introductions

Clarities,

a good introduction to an investigation orientates the marker and shows off what you know in a concise, academic way.

Planning:

• why you chose the theory area and data - what makes this an interesting and useful investigation? (remember to be academic not rampantly enthusiastic)
• a summary of what you know about that theory area including a range of theories and how they connect/contrast
• what you have focussed in on from all of those and why
• therefore what your hypothesis is
• how you will test it (which features of language will you quantify/explore?) and why

There is a clear flow here that is essential for getting good marks in AO1 (the structure and flow of your investigation and the clarity and precision). Really think about the reader's needs - what do I need to know so I can understand your thinking and good decisions?

You can't write the draft of your introduction that I will mark until after you have written the rest as it needs to relate to what you have eventually focussed on (and that sometimes changes at the analysis stage) but it is important to do a draft at this stage to ensure you have carefully thought through what you are doing.

Methodologies and annotating data

Wonderfulls,

I have seen some very thoughtful methodologies but you can always do a little more creative thinking - simplicity is the enemy of good marks. Really try and imagine what you will get, get some sample data if that helps (see the coursework booklet and work through the tasks), try and forsee where there will be problems and address them and really try and get more reliablity and comparability factors to show you have made your investigation as valid as possible in really thoughtful ways.

Once you have collected your data, keep a clean copy for the coursework folder but the next stage is to annotate a copy of the data, finding as many features that relate to your hypothesis as possible, quantifying what seems relevant to point you in the direction of patterns of language use or anything that challenges your hypothesis (which will be worth looking at in detail) and applying as much terminology as possible to explore interesting uses of language. Then relate that language to as many theories from your theory area as possible (not just your hypothesis), showing where they are supported and contradicted; other theory areas might be applicable too e.g. power theories. Also annotate tentative explanations of why language may be being used in this way (context) - offer alternative interpretations where possible. Often questions are good at this stage e.g. why does she shift the agenda?

When I see you on Friday, I will expect to see your data or an iron clad reason why you don't have it, and we will be able to start exploring your data if you have it or writing your introduction if you don't have it.

Using a comma before a quote or speech - should you?

The hard part is, it's flexible. But this post explores some examples and gives you an idea of the range of situations when you might/might not.

Grammar 'rules' - Attitudes to 'right' and 'wrong' uses of language - descriptive vs prescriptive attitudes

This blog post is useful in that it shows how linguists are, perhaps surprisingly, often the least prescriptive - far less likely to be grammar pedants. This distinction makes us, as Language students, descriptive (we describe, we don't judge) and others who coment on the rights and wrongs of language use prescriptive (making a judgement about language use). Don't fall into the prescriptive trap, particularly when talking about children's language - use the term 'non-standard' rather than 'wrong' or 'incorrect'.

There are also some great links available from this page for more wider reading.

Double entendre: borrowings - Language Change and World Englishes

This is an article full of useful examples for the exam (learn a few that appeal to you) and some interesting discussions of words and phrases we use in English as well as English-seeming words/phrases that are used in other languages - the fact that 'double entendre' is not a French phrase amazed me!

Trump idiolect. Bigly.

This is a great story - many people are hearing Trump's idiolectal phrase "big-league" as "bigly", which makes me laugh bigly. Bigly. Haha. Bigly. I'm so using that bigly from now on.

Here's a linguist who has tracked his use of the phrase.

Where are all the transcript analyses? URGENT!

Thanks to those of you who posted on-time by Tuesday - I am most of the way through marking these.

But there are more than half missing. While I will not do feedback on late work, I need to mark it to form my judgement of how you are progressing and you must complete all set work. Post analyses urgently or I will need to follow up on missing work and it will be too late to set an appropriate grade for your formal mark for the term that will be communicated to your parents. This will no doubt be lower as a result. As will your effort grade.

Computer room lesson for Mon(E)/Fri(A) and ongoing work - Methodologies and data collection

Independents,

I will be on a course on Tuesday, so see below for the work I would like you to do (the register will be marked E so you don't need to sign anything or attend) and over the holiday.

For the normal computer room lesson:

Finally choose your hypothesis and how you will test it.

Write your methodology in note form, taking into account the following:

• State your hypothesis first and explain the theory basis if necessary (this will go in your intro eventually, not your methodology, but I will need to know it) e.g. The interrogatives used by the caregiver will have an impact on the child's language (Bruner and Vygotski's ideas about social interaction)
• Explain what kind of data you will collect (be as specific as possible) and how it will help you to test the hypothesis e.g. three transcripts showing a dialogue between the caregiver and child in child-led tasks - this will allow me to see how the caregiver uses interrogatives and how/whether that technique structures the task and the child's responses
• Under the relevant sub-headings, deal with the three key factors from the green booklet to show your sophisticated considerations of the problems and how to solve them - reliability will be the most important factor in such a small-scale investigation and ethicality may not be an issue in public data - say so if that is the case. e.g. ethicality: I will get full, informed consent from the caregiver and all participants over the age of consent (using initial verbal consent and then a form explaining the use of the data and the participants' right to withdraw their permission)  and ensure that the recordings do not impact on the child's usual activities by having the caregiver record when the activity is already decided upon; comparability: I will ensure that the same caregiver and child are used, that all the dialogues are child-led as far as it is possible to ascertain this, that (where other participants are involved) any uncomparable sections of data are disregarded, that the context is the same as far as possible (home environment - although time of the day and day of the week will vary due to necessity of getting child-led dialogues, and the age of the child will need consideration as they develop so quickly at this age); reliability: longer transcripts and more of them are desirable (3 transcripts of >3 minutes seems a reasonable anmount of data for an investigation of this size), as averages will be less affected by anomalies, but the small amount of data means the effect of possible anomalies will need to be considered, especially when comparing the transcripts rather than using averages across them, and contextual factors will need close consideration when trying to determine how reliable each piece of data is.
• If you need to establish a protocol for what you will include in your testing and what you won't, draft one now, although it might go in your final analysis rather than your methodology

Get my help urgently if you need to ask permission to record natural speech or access private data e,g, someone's letters or diaries, someone's Facebook data if the expectation is that only friends will see it etc.

You will need to get me to check your methodology and any letters and forms urgently before you collect your data. Post the methodology to your blog asap and email me any permissions letters and informed consent forms. This will not be the marked draft which I will take after you have collected the data so it is accurate; this one is just for me to check you have made good choices and considered problems and issues.

The methodology should be completed by the end of the computer room lesson so, on Tuesday, I want you to use JSTOR (accessed via the LRC Moodle page), emagazine (logon info on our Moodle page in the top box (Course info) and any other sources of academic reading (the LRC if you are in college - find our Language shelf) to flesh out your theory reading for your investigation - you are looking for any theory that might be relevant, even if it is not the focus of your investigation e.g. if you are looking at gendered language, you could look at power or dialect theories to see where they might be relevant. Make good notes and keep a Harvard referenced bibliography - revision sites don't look good on that, so research from reputable sources like the ones I mention above. Blog a quick summary of the ideas you have found that could be relevant.

Then the next task is to collect your data by the end of the holiday (unless you are collecting natural speech and can't finish doing it by then). You must ensure I have commented that your methodology is okay. Email me if you haven't heard by Fri 21st with the relevant blog link.

Accent and dialect theory

This is a most marvellous language blog (Aggslanguageblog) and for those of you who've been asking me about accent and dialect theory, this is a good place to start. You must read multiple sources and ensure you understand the theory, attaching examples and terminology in your notes - ask me for help checking them if necessary.

The most magnificent David Crystal talks in Bath

David Crystal, guru of English Language theories and issues, is talking about his new grammar book in Bath in March.

I've just been to see the fabulous Margaret Atwood at one of these and it was well worth going to. the book will be good too (as any of his are) but it would be worth the price of £6/7 just to hear him speak, let alone then get that off the book!

Punctuation and language change

This mentalfloss link arrived in my facebook news feed. Don't neglect social media for wider reading!