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

Course Description * Schedule * Reading * Assessment

Research Project: The Proposal

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

For your research proposal, you should do 3 things.

1. Familiarize yourself with the project instructions.
2. Write as much of a proposal (for the group project, if you are involved in a group project) as you can write. This will require some pondering, but will help us all work out the necessary details. You may differ from each other in terms of what you see as the primary goals of this project, but we should aim to collectively design a project that can answer all group members’ questions. Be sure to discuss:
   • 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?
3. Describe what your specific contribution will be. Think about this both in terms of what aspects of data collection, organization, and analysis you would like to work on and what sections of a final group paper you would be well-positioned to write.

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!)

In order to successfully and seamlessly accomplish this, you need to 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 time as well.

I anticipate proposals between 2-6 pages, but that's just a guideline.