[meteor_slideshow slideshow=”arp1″]
A workshop is planned for week 10 where you are required to bring in a draft of your work to discuss with your classmates and receive feedback from your tutor.
1. Assessment Strategy
You are required to submit one piece of written work, which will involve the collection of spoken data, transcription of your data and a critical commentary reflecting on the process.
2. Details of assessment and deadlines
One assignment (100%) of 3,000 words, comprising:?
• Part A. Transcription: you are required to collect natural, spoken data of a dialogue or multi-party interaction (i.e. not a monologue), which you must transcribe and present according to the feature you are interested in foregrounding, together with;
?• Part B. A critical commentary that discusses the process of data collection with a reflection of the issues involved. You are required to write a critical commentary describing the process of undertaking this research, which should include a discussion on issues such as validity, reliability, ethics; your methodology – choice of participants and choice of equipment used for data collection; the Observer’s Paradox; and any difficulties with transcribing etc. You are not, however, expected to analyse your data.
3. Guidance to help you structure your work
Your work will be in two parts: Pt. A, the transcription and Part B, the critical commentary:
Length of transcript: 2 pages of A4 (1.5 spaced)
Length of commentary: 1, 800 words (10 % over or under)
3.1 Before you begin collecting your spoken data
Decide what aspect of language you are interested in e.g. are you interested in interruptions, male and female discourse, children’s language, use of accents and dialects, code-switching, story telling etc? It is important to decide before you begin your data collection as this will determine who your informants are, the setting/ context for your data collection, and finally, how you represent your spoken data in your transcription.
For ideas of which linguistic feature to collect, see Wray, A. and Bloomer, A. (2006) Projects in Linguistics: a practical guide to researching language. London: Hodder Arnold. (Older editions of the book by Wray, Trott and Bloomer are just as useful.) NB. Turn-taking is not a feature: if you are interested in this aspect of talk, you must choose a specific feature within the framework of Conversation Analysis e.g. interruptions and overlaps, topic change (- refer to lecture notes)
3.2 Your informants and data.
As you are working with informants, you must produce a letter of consent, which your informants must sign. If you are using children, their parent or guardian must signed the letter. The letter must be included in the appendix. For reasons of ethics, I suggest that your informants are people you know e.g. family, friends, classmates at university, work colleagues etc. Whatever you choose to collect, the spoken interaction must be “natural” and spontaneous i.e. not scripted. (In the case of interviews, you may have an interview schedule, that is, a list of interview questions, but the informant must not be told what to say). Keep notes of the process at every stage, including decisions you made, anything that works well or does not etc., to help you write your critical commentary.
3.3 Part A. Transcription
Your transcription must be placed before the commentary. (Do not place in the appendix.) Provide a short paragraph before the transcription with the following details to contextualise your data and introduce your feature:
the linguistic feature you are foregrounding
who your informants are
the context of spoken interaction (e.g. work, family dinner etc.)
the type of spoken interaction (e.g. conversation, interview etc.)
the topic of spoken interaction
After you have recorded your spoken interaction, transcribe it, deciding beforehand on the format and the feature(s) of spoken interaction you want to foreground and represent. Ensure that you include a transcription key after your transcription to enable the reader to understand your transcription codes. Provide line numbers for each line of your transcription.
Part B. Your critical commentary
Write a critical commentary on the process of undertaking this research, which should include a discussion on the feature you set out to collect, your methodology and the decision you had to make in choosing informants…equipment…setting…the process of transcribing your data… any difficulties experienced e.g. the Observer’s Paradox, and how these were dealt with, if at all etc. Specifically, your commentary should highlight any problems you encountered during this process. Comment also on issues to do with validity, reliability, ethics, and on any issues that you had not anticipated at the outset, how you dealt with or overcame them and say how you would approach these if you had to repeat the process again. Discuss any difficulties with transcribing the spoken interaction into a written format, for example, if you had difficulty with hearing or understanding what was said (e.g. speakers overlapping and interrupting each other) and how this affected your final transcription, if at all. (Again, note: you are not then expected to analyse your feature.)
3.5 References and bibliography
It is important that you refer to academic sources to describe and explain key terms and support points raised in your discussion. You must attach a bibliography to your work (before the appendix) – a minimum of 6-8 texts is suggested, which must be cited in the commentary, as evidence of your reading around the subject.
3.6 Appendix
Attach your letter of consent here and anything else that you feel needs to go into the Appendix (e.g. a framework or model that, due to the limitation of the word count, could not fit into the critical commentary.) Number your appendices to be able to cross-refer.
4. Assessment criteria
Your work will be assessed by how far you fulfil the above assignment. You will be marked on the presentation of the transcription, content of the commentary, critical insights and development, structure, appropriate and accurate referencing, academic style and presentation. Also, be aware of the following:
Ensure that your transcript is attached to your commentary when you submit your work, otherwise this will result in a fail. As the transcript is part of the content of the assignment, do not put it in the appendix.
Do not use data that you have collected for another assignment in any other module, otherwise this will result in a fail.
Make sure that you use the appropriate referencing conventions and attach a bibliography.
5. Penalties for late submission – see Module Guide
If you submit the hard copy within one week of the deadline your mark will be capped at 40%.
If you fail to submit an e-copy, your work will be capped at 40%.
If you only submit an e-copy and not a hard copy within a week of the submission date this constitutes a form of non-submission so the e-copy won’t be marked and you will receive an automatic grade of 1%. Failure to submit both hard and electronic copies constitutes non-submission and will receive a mark of zero.
(Dr. Marina Lambrou, Oct. 2012)
[meteor_slideshow slideshow=”arp2″]
A-Research-Paper.com is committed to deliver a custom paper/essay which is 100% original and deliver it within the deadline. Place your custom order with us and experience the different; You are guaranteed; value for your money and a premium paper which meets your expectations, 24/7 customer support and communication with your writer. Order Now
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]
