LING 201-01: Language and Society (CRN 837)
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Field Work Project
This is your major project. You should be working on it all semester. The goal of this project is for you to study and analyze language from a specific community. To accomplish this goal, you will go through several stages:
- Choosing a Topic: You need to come up with a specific topic for this project (e.g. the word people use for a carbonated beverage; how people (or a group of people) pronounce specific words, etc.). Be open to ideas. Maybe there's a saying you've heard a friend or relative use and you want to know if others use it ("don't make me open up a can of whoop ass"; "she's as thick as two short planks"; "you look like whipped cat shit"; etc.). Maybe you want to know how people pronounce certain words (e.g. often; marry/merry/Mary; ant/aunt; etc.). Maybe you've seen a particular group of people use terms in a different way than other groups (bag/sack; sub/hoagie/grinder; cap/hat/toque; etc.). Maybe you really want to see if men and women use language differently (colors; directions; cooking; etc.). There are any number of interesting topics you can study for this topic.
- Defining Your Group: Once you have a topic in mind, you're ready for the next steps. You will need to define the group of people you want to poll. This group may be defined by your topic in some cases, but you may also have to decide if you want to narrow it. For example, if you're doing a study of how people pronounce certain words, you may decide you want to focus on people originally from Long Island or Oneonta. Or you may decide you want to compare how natives of both Long Island and Oneonta use or pronounce certain words. You may also decide that you want to examine a broader, more general population. It depends on your specific topic to a great extent.
- Deciding on Your Method: With your subject group decided upon, you then need to decide if you want to use a written form or an oral questionnaire for your subjects. Again, it will depend on your specific topic to a great extent. If you're dealing with pronunciation, you will obviously use an oral questionnaire. But if you're dealing with word choice, you may decide that a written questionnaire will be more appropriate.
- Designing You Survey/Questionnaire: There should be two parts at least to your questionnaire. One will be demographic information. You should gather this information to aid your analysis of the data. You should request date (or year) of birth and/or age range; gender; location of birth; and present town they live in (and how long they've lived there). Do not ask for the person's name on the questionnaire. Ask for all of the demographic information even if you don’t think it’s pertinent (and you may ask additional information if you like). The second part of the questionnaire or survey will be the questions pertinent to your study. You should ask a variety of questions revolving around your topic to help stimulate the fullest array of data you can come up with. If you're trying to get people to identify items to examine what term they use (pop/soda, colors, etc.), then you may want to use picture identification rather than something like a multiple choice questionnaire (or you may want to combine them). If you choose identification, use photographs, not clip art. However you choose to create your survey or questionnaire, you need to think of as many different ways the language use can come into play as you can. Make sure that you haven't set up the questionnaire in such a way that your expectations bias it.
- Collecting Your Data: Once you've completed your questionnaire, you must then implement it. Gather information from at least 50 people (the more you question the better). They should not all be your friends or relatives. Explain that you're completing a project about how language functions. Offer to give them the results of your study. Be patient with the people who help with your survey, and make sure that you thank them for their time. If you're doing an oral collection, you may want to tape record the answers. If you do want to record the responses, get permission from your subjects before you do it. Please note that your subjects may change their mind about participating in your survey at any time. If they do change their mind, just remove their survey from your pile and destroy it and find someone else to complete it.
- Analyzing the Data: Once the data are collected, you must then analyze them. Start by sorting your findings. Then examine them closely and see if you can draw any conclusions based on your findings. Do the results run along gender lines? Age lines? Ethnic lines? Other lines? Are they what you expected to find? What surprises you? Have there been any mistakes in the data collection? Do they color the results? What conclusions can you make from your data? Run percentages of the answers as you're trying to analyze the data.
- Writing Up and Presenting Your Findings: The final step of the project is the write-up. You need to present a narrative of your process and results. Talk about how you devised your topic and your questionnaire, the collection process, and the final results. If you write a narrative explaining steps 1-6 for you project, you will have a good start. Consider the following questions as you’re concluding your essay: What did you learn from this project? What should the reader take from your project? Be specific when you talk about your steps and your results. Include a copy of your questionnaire with the final paper as well as a chart of both raw data and percentages of your results (this information can be placed in an appendix or imbedded in the essay as a whole). When you’re writing the paper, you should reference the specific numbers before generalizing about them. When you talk about specific words as words, italicize or underline them (i.e. “Five of fifty people identified the photo as pop while forty called it soda.”). If you’re focusing on males versus females, refer to gender rather than sex.You will also give a brief (5 minute) presentation of your findings to the class at the end of the semester. The paper, which needs to be in MLA format, should be between 7 and 10 pages long. You are welcome (and encouraged) to do outside research related to your topic, but it is not required.
During the semester, I will ask for brief progress reports. On 15 February, I will ask for your topic and a draft of your questionnaire. On 14 March, you will give a progress report on your data collection. These updates will form part of your grade. The final paper is due on 5 May by 5, but presentations are on 2 and 5 May, so be prepared to discuss your data earlier than the final paper is due.
If you have trouble devising a topic for your project, come talk to me so that I can help you come up with something. If you and a classmate are interested in working together, see me, and we will make arrangements. I will allow no more than 2 to a group, however, and those who work in pairs will be required to survey at least 100 subjects (instead of 50), though you will only need to submit a single paper analyzing the data.
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