13200 - Make sure u pay attention to the key words PDF

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Make sure u pay attention to the key words...

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Language investigation course book Contents Introduction..................................................................................... page 2 Exam board outline.............................................................................page 3 Assessment objectives..........................................................................page 3 Investigation overview.........................................................................page 4 Choosing your investigation...................................................................page 5 Collecting your data............................................................................page 6 Handling spoken data..........................................................................page 7 Creating questionnaires.......................................................................page 8 Finding a focus.................................................................................page 10 Data analysis...................................................................................page 11 Formulating frameworks......................................................................page 14 Structuring your investigation...............................................................page 15 Creating your media text.....................................................................page 17 Skills practice 1: Mills and Boon.............................................................page 18 Skills practice 2: Hairdressers and florist..................................................page 19 Skills practice 3: Kodak advertising.........................................................page 19 Skills practice 4: Facebook and Myspace...................................................page 20 Skills practice 5: Government advisory adverts...........................................page 21 Skills practice 6: collecting spoken data...................................................page 22 Referencing guide.............................................................................page 23 Bibliography....................................................................................page 24 Appendices: a) b) c) d) e)

Student record form......................................................................page 25 Teacher record form.....................................................................page 26 Past investigations........................................................................page 27 Transcript conventions.................................................................. page 31 Example style model for media piece: Crystal on texting.........................page 32

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Language investigation course book

Introduction During your English Language study so far you will have acquired a broad knowledge of a range of factors that impact upon our language use. You will also have acquired the skills to comment upon this language and will be able to using a range of terminology accurately and effectively. Over the next few months you will be working towards completing your ENGB4 Investigating Language module. During this time you will be expected to use and develop your knowledge of the English language to produce an independent investigation into an area of language that interests you. In addition to this, you will create a media text that provides an insight into the area that you have been investigating; introducing and commenting upon this area of language for a non-specialist audience. This module requires a great deal of independence, organisation and focus. You will be expected to spend approximately 60 hours completing your final pieces so it’s important that you chose a topic that grabs your attention. You won’t be abandoned though. Your teacher(s) will be there to provide guidance and advice through a combination of whole-class lessons, individual tutorials and informal chats. You need to keep a record of these meetings and submit this as an appendix in your final coursework folder (see appendices A and B for the forms to help you do this). In addition, this booklet will help to guide you through the whole process from start to finish. It is designed to be a step-by-step guide to the general approaches that you will need to employ and will help you to structure your work efficiently and effectively.

Language and occupation/ power

Language change

Language acquisition

Language and gender English Language

Language and dialect

Language and technology

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Language investigation course book Exam board outline for ENGB4 The aim of this unit The aim of this coursework unit is to develop your ability to explore and analyse language data through a variety of methods. It should enable you to build upon the key concepts and ideas gained during the course of your studies, as well as providing you with the opportunity to demonstrate expertise in an area of individual interest. Your coursework file will comprise of two individual pieces of writing:  

a language investigation a media text.

Language investigation You should choose your own area for study in consultation with your teacher(s). The topic selected should be manageable given the time and word limits. Investigations may be based on areas that have been studied during the course so far; or may be based in any area that is seen to yield interesting questions about language study. The length of your investigation should be 1750-2500 words, excluding appendices and data. Media text You will use the broad subject focus of your investigation to produce a media text (e.g. newspaper article, magazine article) highlighting the language ideas and issues surrounding your chosen topic. This task will encourage you to develop your editorial writing skills (these have already been tested in ENGB2). This piece should be based on your knowledge and should be aimed at a non-specialist audience. This piece needs to be linked to your investigation but does not need to reflect your findings. You will be able to undertake wider reading and you should provide a bibliography to identify your preparatory reading material. The length of this piece should be 750-1000 words. Assessment objectives The following objectives are assessed through your completion of your ENGB4 Investigating Language coursework. They are weighted in different proportions. AO1

AO2

AO3

AO4

Select and apply a range of linguistic methods, to communicate relevant knowledge using appropriate terminology and coherent, accurate written expression. Investigation: 20% Demonstrate critical understanding of a range of concepts and issues relating to the construction and analysis of meanings in spoken and written language, using knowledge of linguistic approaches. Investigation: 20% Analyse and evaluate the influence of contextual factors on the production and reception of spoken language, showing knowledge of the key constituents of language. Investigation: 10% Demonstrate expertise and creativity in the use of English in a range of contexts informed by linguistic study. Article: 30%

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Language investigation course book Investigation overview: preparatory stages

Choose the area that you will be researching for your investigation

Collect your data. Complete any background reading and undertake any other research

Refine your title – give yourself a clear focus for your investigation

Identify the key frameworks you will use to help you structure your investigation

Investigation overview: analysis and organisation

Carry out a detailed and logical analysis of your data

Draw your ideas together and decide upon your conclusions

Reflect on the validity and effectiveness of your data and methods you have chosen to explore it

Write up and re-draft your investigation, assemble appendices and present your final piece © www.teachit.co.uk 2012

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Language investigation course book This is one way in which you can ‘chunk’ your work. Breaking-down your project will help to ensure that the major task of creating your investigation is made manageable and logical. Rather than rigidly adhering to this process you should use it as a series of guidelines. Notice how much preparation is required prior to writing your final piece. Choosing your investigation Selecting an area for your investigation is a matter of personal choice. This is often the most daunting part of the whole process, so don’t worry if you feel a little overwhelmed and undecided. You will need to think carefully about what aspects of your English language study have so far interested you. This project will take a lot of time (approximately 60 hours of work) and the more enthusiastic you are about your chosen area of study the better. Think about what you enjoy doing, what interests you and what you have enjoyed studying. You also need to think about practical issues. For example;    

Will you be able to collect suitable data? Will you be able to refine your ideas? Will you be able to create a focused and interesting title for your investigation? Do you have a good understanding of this area? Or, will you be able to acquire the knowledge base needed?

When making your choice, it’s worth considering the following questions to help you think of possible areas that may yield an effective project:             

Do you have a part time job? Do you have a hobby? Do you like to read magazines? Do you listen to the radio? Which television programmes do you watch? Do you watch or play any sports? Do you belong to any clubs or organisations? Do any of your friends or family members speak differently to you (accent/dialect) Do you have younger brothers/sisters? (language acquisition) Do you have your old primary school exercise books/reports? Do you know anyone who speaks English as a second language? What topics interested you the most last year? Do you enjoy analysing speech or writing? See Appendix C for a comprehensive list of areas used by students in previous investigations.

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Language investigation course book Collecting your data Once you have decided upon an area for your investigation, you will need to collect your data. It is important that your data is carefully and accurately collected; the success of your investigation depends upon it. How you collect your data will vary depending upon your chosen area. It may be quite complicated and can be quite time consuming so make sure you are prepared for this. You may need to:      

record and transcribe spoken data (from audio or screen) collect a range of written texts visit local libraries search the internet create questionnaires set up interview scenarios.

Once you have collected your data you should ideally have it electronically stored so that you can easily make multiple copies. You may need to scan pieces onto the computer but should always keep the originals as well. You will need to include in your final project appendices:  a clean (original) copy of your data  an annotated version of your data. Anomalies When collecting your data you need to ensure that your collection is consistent and keeps anomalies and variables to a minimum. You need to think very carefully about any other contextual factors which may prevent you from accurately comparing data, or may prevent it from being truly representative. Ethics When collecting your data you need to ensure that you have permission to use it in your investigation; you may need to send letters or emails to do this. You should also ensure that all your data is ethically collected. For example, you should not record people speaking without their knowledge. Any letters/emails that you write should be included in your appendices along with any responses that you receive.

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Language investigation course book Handling spoken data Some of the most rewarding and interesting projects require students to analyse spoken texts. Recording and transcribing data can be a time consuming process but is one that can yield interesting, unique and lively data. See Appendix D for a list of Transcript Conventions. Your spoken data may be transcribed from a media source, for example:     It    

a television programme live sports commentary advertisements a radio show. may involve the use of real speech for example: teacher talk in the classroom responses to a series of questions where the focus may be dialect the speech of a child talking to their parents children retelling a story.

It may involve represented speech:  characters in a soap opera speaking  news readers telling the news  a politician making a speech. In all the cases you should consider the following: 1) Quantity: It is likely that you will record a lot more data than you will need in the end and transcribing everything that you record will take hours. So, the first step is to select which parts of your recordings are most relevant to the question that you are exploring. 2) Detail: You then need to consider how much detail you will need to include in your transcript. A transcript should enable the reader to recreate the spoken data in their head without the need to refer to the original recording. 3) Conventions: There are no absolute rules that dictate how a transcript should be presented and what it should include. In all probability you will need to show aspects of speech, through the use of symbols that would not be obvious on the page. For example; pauses, hedges, intonation. However, what you show will be very much dependent on the area of language that you are exploring. You may like to adopt the conventions demonstrated in the Appendix C. In all cases you should use a key. 4) Phonetic alphabet: Often transcripts will require you demonstrate how something is said rather than simply what is being said; in many cases you will indicate this using standard conventions of phonetic spelling e.g. yeah instead of yes. However, for some areas of exploration, particularly if you are focusing on dialect or acquisition, you will need a more accurate and rigorous way of showing demonstrating pronunciation. For this you will use need to use the phonetic alphabet. See Appendix E. © www.teachit.co.uk 2012

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Language investigation course book The factors that impact upon spoken language

Prosodic features

Paralinguistic features

Features of interaction

Spoken language

Grammatical features

The context

Creating questionnaires

Questionnaires can be a very useful way of collecting a variety of interesting and relevant data. However, the quality of your data will only be as good as the quality of your questionnaire so they need plenty of thought and some careful creation. You will also need to ensure that you can collect enough data to make your findings valid. In the ‘real world’ this often means hundreds or thousands of responses; in the world of your investigation you should aim to look at approximately 50 sets of responses. This is a brief outline of the process you will need to go through to create a good questionnaire.

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Language investigation course book

Objectives

 

You need to identify the objectives of your survey This will probably require you to complete background research and identify theories you would like to test



You will need to identify who will ask to complete your survey; are you looking at a wide range, small range or random sample? Consider: age, gender, interests, context

Sampling group 



Creating 

Conducting your questionnaire

Interpreting your results

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 

  

Make sure your questions are clear and obtain information that is useful to your investigation without being leading Consider: wording, layout, anonymity, clarity,

How will you conduct your questionnaire? Consider: obtaining a range of responses, the personal information you may need to collect (e.g. gender, age)

How will you collate your results? Consider how your results would best be presented e.g. tables, graphs, charts Is there any statistical analysis that you can perform?

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Language investigation course book Finding a focus for your investigation Once you have collected your data you will need to look at creating a defined question for your investigation. It is worth remembering that the best approaches are often quite narrow allowing you to explore an idea in real depth. The first steps towards this are:  to familiarise yourself with your data and consider its most defining features  to undertake any background reading required, research the area that you will be investigating. In light of this you will then need to formulate a title/question to address. In effect you will be creating an abstract or hypothesis for your investigation. This isn’t a complicated process but it does require some thought and there is no individual model that will fit every task. At the outset it is worth considering these simple questions in relation to your chosen area:  what?  how?  why? You may also like to think about:  when?  where?  who? Often projects take one of the following forms, or use the following phrases in their title: An analysis of

implies close attention to detail

A comparison of

looks at two or more sets of data which have similarity and difference

A study of

implies wider ranging consideration

An exploration

implies something wide ranging with discovery as an end result

An enquiry into

implies that you have an open question which you will attempt to answer

Research into

implies that the data collection is in itself important

The languag e of

implies that the investigation will attempt to define the trends in language use in one particular area

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Language investigation course book Data analysis In light of your question and focus you will now need to approach your data in depth. To do this you should undertake some, or all, of the following processes:      

analyse and annotate your data in detail order and organise for data logically group ideas, comments, quotations and examples appropriately compare and contrast the data that you have collected perform a statistical analysis on questionnaires/‘counted’ parts present results in an appropriate manner.

Using diagrams This may be an English language investigation but there is no reason why you can’t include tables, graphs or pie-charts if you feel that this would be the most appropriate way to present your data effectively. Take a look at the following examples, these come from the real investigations of previous students: Example A Project title A study of legalese in the ‘Weekly Law Reports’. Comments This investigation demonstrated the genuine interest of the student in the law. A detailed and focused piece, it examined the use of legalese in real depth. The data was taken from the weekly law reports which are short summaries of influential cases written by lawyers for their peers and the judiciary. These written texts were taken from the internet and requi...