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Projects in I ~ ~., ~ .~~ Second Edition BiBLIOTECA UNiVERSITARIA GRANADA I N.o Documento b f7-6IC}-Z¡; I N,aCopia [-¡gqO{'icr) PROJECTS IN I ~ ~., ~ .~~. ~,~ :·'~ I·~·~~:', N\ l.,. G·.'.• U"·'~ 1'1·".' I.:·@j....., l .~.. '" ~ II ' )¡ I .~.~ ~ ~ " _1 ~ l:t~~ih~~~ ~ APRACTlCAL GUIDE YO RESEARCHING LANGUAGE Alison Wray Cardiff University Aileen Bloomer York St John University College HODDER t, EDUCATION PART OF HACHETTE lIVRE UK CONTENTS Preface to second edition xi we wrote this book xi Who the book is for xi What the book does xi What the book doesn 't do xii The second edítion xii First published in Great Britaln in 1998 by Arnold. This edition published Acknowledgments xiii in 2006 by Hodder Education, part of Hachette Livre UK 338 Euston Road, London NWI 3BH International Phonetic Alphabet xiv www.hoddereducation.co.uk © 2006 Alisan Wray and Aileen Bloomer 1 Introduction: starting on the right foot 1 Choosing an area All rights reserved. No part oí trus publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or 1 by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording or any Getting organized 3 informatíon storage or retrieval system, without either prior permission in writing from tbe publisher or a Ucence permitting restticted copying. In the United Kingdom such licences are Using resources 5 issued by <be Copyright Licensing Agency: Saffron HOllse, 6-10 Kirby Street, LondonECIN 8TS. Being a researcher 7 The advice and information in th.is book are believed to be true and 3ccurate at the date of Theory-only projects 10 to press. but neither the authors nor tIte publisher can accept any legal responsibilíty or Setting up data-based research 10 for any errors or omissions. Being streetwise: keeping on the right side of your assessor 14 Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge ownership ofcopyright. The publishers will be glad to make suitable arrangements with any copyright holden whom il has no! b~n possible ro contacto PART I AREAS OF STUDY ANO PROJECT IDEAS British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British. Library 2 Psycholinguistics 17 Ubrary 01 Congress Cataloging-ín-Publicari01l Data Textbooks and major journals 17 A catalog record for trus book is a",llable fmm the Library of Congress Central themes and project ideas 18 ISBN 978 O 340 90578 4 How psycho/inguists conceptualize language 19 345678910 How we understand language 19 Psycholinguistics and grammatical theory 21 Typeset by Phoenix Photosetting, Chatbam, Kent Printed and bound in Malta Lexical and structural ambiguity 22 How we produce spoken language 23 What do you thínk abaut <bis book? Or any other How we produce writíng 26 Hodder Education title? Please send your comments to the feedback section on www.hoddereducation.co.uk Language and thought 27 vi Contents COntents vii 3 First-Ianguage acquisition and development 30 5 Structure and meaning 60 Approaches to research 30 Textbooks and major joumals 60 Terminology 31 Central themes and project ideas 61 Textbooks and major journals 31 Pragmatics 61 Things to think about 32 Metaphor 63 Accessíng children 32 Sentence structure 64 Working wíth children 33 Words in isolation and in combinatíon 66 Central themes and project ideas 34 Morphology and etymology 69 Longitudinal case studies 34 Punctuation 70 Prelinguistic development 35 'COffect' grammar 71 Over- and under-extension: lexical and semantic development 35 Children's morphology 36 6 Style in spoken and written texts 75 Deve/opment of phono/ogy and intonation 36 Textbooks and major journals 76 Comprehension of complex grammatical structures 37 Central themes and project ideas 77 Children 's metalinguistic awareness 38 Sound patterns within texts 77 Colour terms 38 Lexical choice within texts 79 carer language (or child-directed speech) 40 Grammatical structure withín texts 80 Conversational development 40 Interpersonal function of texts 82 Sources of variation in child language 41 Formality and informality 84 Literacy development 41 Ideology and power 85 Developmental problems 43 Authorship 87 Later language acquisition 43 Oral texts 87 Electronically conveyed texts 89 4 Second-Ianguage acquisition 45 Terminology 45 7 Sociolinguistics 92 Textbooks and major journals 46 Terminology and central concepts 93 Things to think about 47 Textbooks and major joumals 94 Central themes and project ideas 48 Central themes and project ideas 95 Developmental sequen ces and the process of acquisition 48 Quantitative approaches 95 Comparison of L1 and L2 acquisition 48 Social networks 96 Language-Iearning targets 49 Qualitative approaches 97 Motivation 50 102 Grammar-based and communication-based teaching 50 8 Language and gender Vocabulary acquisition 52 Terminology 102 Different concepts expressed in different languages 52 Textbooks and major joumals 103 The learner's approach and experience 53 Central themes and project ideas 103 Interlanguage, error ana/ysis and contrastive ana/ysis 54 The gender variable in linguistic research 103 Language assessment and testing 54 Attitudes towards ma/e and female language 104 Bifingua/s, multilingua/s and polyglots 55 Gender differences in accent and dialect 105 Language teaching policíes 56 Differences in conversation and style of language use 106 Effect of the year abroad 57 Gaylanguage 108 Role of the social and polítical status of English as L2 58 Explanations of difference 108 Language and sexism 109 Gender-differentiated language in first-Ianguage acquisition 110 Language, gender and education 111 viii Contents Contents ix 9 Accents and dialects of English 113 12 Experiments 144 Terminology 114 What does experimentation involve? 144 Textbooks, reference sources and major journals 114 Designing an experiment 146 Which accentldialect to choose 116 Things to think about 148 Obtaining data 116 Advantages of experimental research 150 What to loo k for in an accent 117 Disadvantages of experimental research 150 What to look for in a dialect 117 Possible angles and project ideas 119 13 Questionnaires, interviews and focus groups 152 Comparing the speech of three generations 119 Deciding if you need a questionnaire, interview or focus group 152 Comparing the accents of different non-native speakers 120 Common uses of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires 153 Explaining why a variety has come about 121 Subjects 153 The political dimension of a variety 121 Personal information, confidentialíty and anonymity 154 Accent and dialect in literature 122 Limitations of seff-report 154 Update study 123 Ways of getting information 155 Comparison of two varieties 124 Things to think about 158 Things to think about 125 Questionnaires 158 lnterviews 162 10 HistOlY of English 126 Focus groups 165 Textbooks, reference sources and major journals 127 Central themes and project ideas 128 14 Observation and case studies 168 Researching words and names 128 Observation studies 168 Pronunciation and spelling 131 Case studies 170 History of Eng/ish dialects 133 The profile of a feature of English across time 133 15 Ethical considerations in research projects 173 Sociopolitical trends and influences on English 133 Ethics policies and guidelines 173 English as a worid language 134 The difference between confidentiality and anonymity 174 The influence of literacy on language 135 Data Protection Laws 175 Things to think about 135 PART 111 TOOLS FOR DATA ANALYSIS AND PROJECT WRITING PART 11 TECHNIQUES FOR COLLECTING DATA 16 Transcribing 'speech phonetically and phonemically 179 11 Audio- and video-recorded data 139 The difference between phonetic and phonemic transcription 179 Places to get data 139 A few notes on phonemes 180 Audio or video? 139 Phonetic and phonemic symbols in word processing 181 Naturalistic data 139 Hints on writing about pronunciation 182 Ethics and legality 139 Checklist of phonemes 183 Quality 140 How much data do you need? 140 17 Transcribing speech orthographically 185 Practicalíties 141 How to organize the presentation of a transcription 185 What to submit 142 Turn taking 187 Things to think about 142 Silence and non-verbal communication in conversation 188 Dealing with unusual pronunciations 189 Transcribing unclear utterances 190 Marking pitch, emphasis, volume and speed 191 x Contents External events 193 Presenting the transcription 194 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION Presenting the audio data 195 18 Using computers to study texts 196 What is a corpus? 196 Why is a corpus useful? 196 How do corpus searches operate? 197 How do you find a corpus? 200 What are the main text analysis tools? 202 Why we wrote this book Making sense of corpus annotation 202 We wrote this book because you cant leam how to write good essays and research projects Using corpora effectively in your work 203 just by reading the subject textbooks. There is a lot of knowledge that a student is Compiling your own corpus: potential problems 203 expected to somehow 'pick up': what good research looks like; how researchers express Limitations of corpora 204 thernselvesj where to start. The alert student will gather some of this information Further reading 204 piecemeal from tutorials, feedback on written work, talkíng to other students and so on, but there is usually no way of being sure that you have done all the right things until the 19 Statistics and your project 205 work comes back marked. Do you need graphs and calculations in your project? 205 From the marker's poínt of view, there are certain features that a píece of work can Descriptíve statistics and basic calculations 206 contain that wUl make it look credible. Many of the things that make the dífference Using statistical analyses 213 between a high mark and a low one are to do wíth havíng the knack of how to plan and Textbooks 217 present research effectívely. Help for the mathematically insecure 218 Key to the most common algebraic symbols used in basic statistics 219 Who the book is for 20 How to reference 221 The book is íntended, prímarily, for undergraduates taking linguístics or language studies Basics 221 as part or all of their degree programme, and who are expected to engage in research-type The Harvard system 225 project work.
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