LIN 1256: Advanced Language Variation & Change
Language Contact, Corpora & Analysis

Course Description * Schedule * Reading * Assessment

Research Project: Your idea(s)

Note: This assignment is not optional (it cannot be the one you choose to skip.)

Now that we have finished the first section of the course, what ideas interest you? What would you like to find out more about? How do you see these topics (Contact, Corpora, Formal analysis) connecting to your other research interests (thesis/forum paper/dissertation...)?

This is an informal brainstorming assignment with no structural guidelines. Be sure to think about the following questions (which will reappear in the next assignment):

• What questions are we/you trying to answer?
• What hypotheses are we/you trying to test?
• What methods will we use?
• What data?
• What findings will support our hypotheses/answer our questions?

You may wish to refer back to the Schleef & Meyerhoff paper about the process of sociolinguistic research as well as this outline of a prototypical sociolinguistic research paper. (Note that not all aspects of the long version may be relevant to all papers!)

I recommend that you discuss plans and ideas with each other! Please use the Discussion Board function in Bb to ensure that we all have access.

Start doing this soon, so you can hand your proposal in on time. We will devote some class time to further discussion. I'm happy to talk to you about it outside of class as well.