Undertaking A Basic Variationist Analysis Dr Emma Moore Sociolinguistics Undertaking A Basic Variationist Analysis Dr Emma Moore

The key to a good project… Planning and structure! Producing an ethical project Understanding the research area Using reliable methods Undertaking a systematic analysis of results Providing an informed discussion of findings How can we apply these to projects you are asked to complete?

Producing an ethical project PREPARATION Producing an ethical project Why? Responsibility, Rigour and Respect… Also, helps you to think through your ideas Understanding their requirements and application of your project Planning the data collection Devising a hypothesis

Demands of Ethics consent *The Application form *The Information sheet Ensure that you understand your university’s ethics process. You may need to apply for consent to undertake your research.

Understanding the research area PREPARATION Understanding the research area Review the literature Lecture notes Required reading Suggested reading Consider additional resources… Remember that your project should demonstrate your knowledge of the research area.

You should consider how objective a website is before you use it PREPARATION Can I refer to websites? Yes, if necessary, appropriate and scholarly Some good examples: Dialect collections on-line http://sounds.bl.uk/BrowseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects University of Edinburgh Sound Comparisons site http://www.soundcomparisons.com/ British Library’s Sounds Familiar? pages http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/index.html BBC Voices project http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/ You should consider how objective a website is before you use it

Devising a hypothesis & aims PREPARATION Devising a hypothesis & aims What do you expect to find? Predictions should be based on previous research and findings What will you investigate and why? What do you already know about your chosen topic? What remains unknown?

Collecting data Consider: Methodology and implications on the data PREPARATION Collecting data Consider: Methodology and implications on the data How will any interviewing be undertaken? Do the techniques comply with usual sociolinguistic methods? What kind of data is it? What can you do with it?

PREPARATION Transcribing the data Most sociolinguistic studies transcribe all the data they collect Easier to have an overview Easier to search Incredibly time-consuming!

Analysing the data What variable are you looking for? PREPARATION Analysing the data What variable are you looking for? How will you identify it in the sound files and the recordings? What variants can you find? How will you record the differences in variants?

Example: Definite Article Reduction (DAR) PREPARATION Example: Definite Article Reduction (DAR) Variable: the pronunciation of the definite article the Variants: Full-forms: /ðə/, /ðɪ/ Reduced forms /ʔ/ before consonants; /θ/ before vowel Example reference to DAR: Britain, David (2007) “Grammatical variation in England”. In: Language in the British Isles. Cambridge: CUP.

Searching the data Open the transcript DOING THE ANALYSIS Searching the data Open the transcript Find/highlight all variable contexts Use the ‘find and replace’ function in Word (Edit > Find) Enter the feature you are looking for e.g. ing or h or the Highlight every instance of this feature You will now know the location of all of the tokens of your variable

DOING THE ANALYSIS PREPARATION Listening to the data Now listen to the sound files and record what you hear for each token of the variable Line Number Token Variant 5 some of the teachers /ðɪ/ 6 with the kids 8 go to the toilets /ʔ/ see the point …

DOING THE ANALYSIS PREPARATION Analysing the data Repeat the same process for each piece of data you are analysing How are the variants distributed for each of your informants? Do you notice anything about the linguistic constraints on variants?

Thinking about linguistic constraints DOING THE ANALYSIS Thinking about linguistic constraints We already know about common linguistic constraints: Full-forms: stress? Reduced forms: following sound (consonant/vowel)? preceding sound (e.g. consonant cluster deletion: with the kids)? Is there anything about the linguistic environment that might affect the variants you find?

Thinking about social constraints DOING THE ANALYSIS Thinking about social constraints Consider the biographical information you have about your informants Do differences between the informants correspond with different variant use? What differences would you expect based on your knowledge of the sociolinguistics literature?

Writing up your findings Your write-up should include the following: Clearly identify the variable and variants that you have studied, giving relevant examples from the transcripts; Show the linguistic contexts in which the variants occur; Show the ways in which the variants correlate with at least two social factors using tables and/or graphs as necessary; Attempt to explain the social and linguistic distribution of the variants you have discovered with reference to the sociolinguistic literature.

WRITING UP YOUR FINDINGS Things to include At some point in your write-up, you ought to say something about work that been done on some or all of the following: The language variety you have studied The variable you have chosen to study The social factors you will analyse Be selective: you probably won’t be able to talk about everything Use appropriate formats Graphs, pie-charts, tables? Don’t just describe your findings, say what they mean Write critically: what are the shortcomings of the analysis?