Final Project (35%)
Topic description & community research due Week 7
Presentations in class during Week 9
Final write-up due Monday June 10
For your final project, you will propose an original research study on language variation and place in the Chicagoland area, focusing on how some aspect of language varies socially within a community in Chicago or its surrounding suburbs. This project will be completed in groups or individually, in stages throughout the quarter. You will select your topic by Week 6, and you will present a short version of your proposal in the last week of class. You will then complete a final write-up (one per group) that will be turned in the first day of Finals Week. Each stage will be worth a portion of your overall grade, breaking down as follows:
- 10% - Proposal topic description, community research summary, and Bibliography (due Thursday May 16 11:59pm)
- 10% - Project presentation (in-class Week 9)
- 15% - Project write-up (due Monday June 10, 11:59pm)
For all components, you will submit one per group (one or more group members should submit the document to Canvas by the deadline) - grades will be assigned to all group members. All group members must participate equitably at every stage of the project including idea generation, writing each stage, presenting, and writing the final project. It is up to you to decide as a group what this means, but all should be in agreement at every stage. You will be asked to report on each group member's contributions (including your own) for each phase of the project, and this will factor into assigned grades. If inequitable distribution of effort or work within the gorup becomes an issue at any point in the quarter, please e-mail Annette immediately. See more details on each phase below:
Proposal topic description, community research summary, and bibliography (10%)
Due Thursday 5/16 11:59 p.m.
You will first select a community within the Chicagoland area (I will ask you to report them me by Week 6) to focus on as a group. This might be a neighborhood area, neighborhood, suburb, or smaller community defined geographically in some way. Communities should be selected based on previous ethnographic, sociological, or historical work that has been conducted on that area (though there likely will not have been sociolinguistic work - this is where your proposal will come in!). You may also choose to compare and contrast two communities, or to conduct a study on Chicago at large. For this portion of the assignment, you will submit three parts, the Community Research Summary, Topic Description, and Bibliography:
- Community research summary: Conduct research on your chosen place's history, social makeup, and other relevant qualities, which will help you come up with a linguistic question to study in this local context. If you are conducting a study on the broader city or multiple communities, be sure to give sociohistorical background at the appropriate scope that will situate your study. You will provide a summary of your community, based on previous academic work and other reliable resources (~2 double-spaced pages).
- Topic description: You will provide a rough plan for the linguistic study you will propose (including the linguistic variable(s) you will study in the community and a plan for methods). Explain why it makes sense to study these variables within this community. (~1-2 double-spaced pages)
- Bibliography: Include a references list (use MLA, APA, or another citation style, but be consistent) with academic resources on both your community context, potential linguistic variables, and the theoretical concepts you will apply to your study.
This should be submitted via Canvas by the deadline, so you will have plenty of time to complete your presentation and paper with my feedback. Of course, you are always welcome to e-mail me, come to office hours, or set up and appointment to discuss your project at any time. Please aim to schedule meetings with your entire group present.
Project presentation (10%) In class 5/28 and 5/30
You will present your project proposal in class in Week 9. Use the guidelines for the write-up below for information on what you will present to the class. You should present a condensed version of what will ultimately be your write-up (no more than 10 minutes), and create slides as visual aids (no more than 10 slides total). Your slides should be cogent and clear, and should help you visualize aspects your presentation. Do not simply write blocks of text and read them (though you may, of course, use notes to present). When you include text, make these key points you wish to highlight. All group members should be involved in creating and delivering your presentation.
Project proposal write-up (15%) Due Monday 6/10, 11:59p.m.
For your write-up, you should include background literature that situates your community and proposed variables of study, provide information about your proposed methods using published sociolinguistic work (whether that we discussed in class or other studies) as a guide to design your study, and explain the type of analysis you would conduct. Importantly, you must discuss the implications of the topic, or proposed study, for the study of sociolinguistic variation and place, couching your research question in theories that we have covered in class. Aim to answer this question: why is this community the perfect place to study some particular aspect of linguistic variation and place? What does this study tell us about how linguistic variation and place are connected, more broadly?
Your write-up should include:
- An introduction of the broader theoretical notions that your study will speak to, drawing upon class concepts
- An introduction of your community and variables.
- Previous research about the community and linguistic variables and/or styles that are relevant to your investigation
- A clearly posed research question with your predictions
- A clear and thorough description of the methods you would use to address your research question
- Information on the recruitment of participants, how you will delimit the community/qualified participants, linguistic variables, and scope, and how you would analyze the data
- How you will know whether your predictions are confirmed, and additional data that you may need
- The implications of the study's potential findings for your research question and the broad theoretical notions that the study speaks to
Explain and justify all of your choices, using previous work as a precedent. Clearly connect your hypotheses or expected findings to previous work in discussing your interpretation of (potential) results.
This paper should be approximately 10 pages double-spaced. However, the number of pages you write is not as important as the quality of the paper, addressing the above criteria and illustrating an understanding and extension of class concepts. Again, all group members should participate equitably in the production of the write-up. While you should only generate one write-up per group, all members of the group should submit the same write-up via Canvas. Submit your paper via Canvas by the deadline. Note that as stated on the syllabus, late final papers will not be accepted.