The Neighbourhood Investigation Project

You may do this 2-part assignment in place of HW 4 and HW 5.

With one or two other students from the class (your research team), choose a heritage language that is spoken by a community in Toronto. This language can be one that you speak or one that you do not speak.

Prep

Tell Dr. Nagy who your team is and what neighbourhood you will visit by Feb. 14.

You and your team are going to write up a report that includes:

1. a description of the community and its history
2. your experiences in narrative form
3. a description of and representation of signs or advertisements or local newspapers and newsletters in both the language of the community and in English.

Report length: 15 to 20 double-spaced pages, including pictures, maps, etc.

Neighbourhood Visit Part 1: Preliminary research and first visit

Find out where this language’s community is. If you are not sure where to start, check out these resources:

• Ethnic Neighbourhoods of Toronto - Lonely Planet travel videos
• Travel the World by Streetcar: A Guide to Toronto's Ethnic Neighborhoods
• Toronto brings you the world – 7 ethnic neighbourhoods

With your research team, first, find out as much as you can about this language community in Toronto, via library, internet and other resources. Try to identify important cultural institutions associated with the language and the community. These may be museums, temples, churches, schools, cultural centers, performance groups, or community advocacy groups.

Then, visit this neighbourhood 2 times (plan this early!). 

Before Reading Week (Feb. 20-24), make your first visit.

Visit one of the important cultural institutions that you identified so as to get more information from them about the community and the languages of the community. Ask them specifically for two things:

1. places where the local language is taught (or was taught)
2. a place to eat where you will hear the language (or languages spoken) and can get a take-out menu (or find the menu online).

Go to this place and eat a meal. Try food you have not eaten before. Don’t be shy. Ask about the food. Tell them you are interested in learning about this community and their language and their food. You can say this is for a class assignment. Ask them if there is some food that they eat only on special holidays. If so, what is it? Ask them what they would eat if they just want to eat home-cooked food, not fancy food. Ask them who cooked for them when they were growing up. Also, in order to buy the ingredients that they need for special meals, where do they shop? You might consider going to visit the market they identify for special foods.

Use the take-out menu (or, if you can't pick that up, then find their online menu) as a basis for describing some of the food you ate and the names of dishes. Considering the menu, also ask yourself questions like these: For some food items, does the menu use only English? For other food items, does the menu mix languages? Consider these two examples from a Mexican restaurant:

Guacamole: Delicious combination of freshly diced avocados, tomatoes, sweet onions, cilantro, and lime juice.

Tamalitos: Two homemade corn tamales stuffed with chicken topped with our Frida sauce, Zapata sauce, queso fresco, pico de gallo and sour cream.

Can you find a pattern of language mixing in the menu according to food item?

Write up notes about your experiences, thinking about what you might want to include in your final report. The goal is to describe what you found out so far about language usage in the neighbourhood you are exploring.

Submit these notes as "HW 4" in Quercus. It will just be graded for completion.

Neighbourhood Visit Part 2: Second visit

By March 7, make your second visit.

This time, walk some of the streets in the community, identifying the types of stores that cater to the community. As you do, take photographs of public signs in both English and the language (or languages) of the community. Also, look for local community publications (newspapers or newsletters) in the language or languages of the community.

Consider these questions:

1. Based on signs and advertisements that you see in the community, what can you say about such cultural aspects like clothing, types of stores, recreation, music, drink, food, medical or legal services, financial institutions, religion, and education?
2. Do some places display signs only in English? Do some places display signs only in the heritage language of the community? Do some places have signs that are bilingual? For example, from Spanish “chuletas/pork chops.” If so, which language appears first, which second in the sequence?
3. Can you say something about how these signs indicate a particular relationship between English and the language of the community?
4. In the local community paper or newsletter, can you find examples of language mixing? If so, what is English used for? What not? Why?

Submit your report in Quercus. Follow this format:

1. Title Page
• Identify the language and community.
• List the authors of the report.
• Include an informative illustration -- make sure to think about copyright and fair use, if you didn't create/take the picture yourself.
2. Give a description of the community and its history.
3. Describe your experiences in narrative form.
4. Present a description of and representation (photographs and/or transcriptions) of signs in both the language of the community and in English.
5. Discussion – how can you connect parts (b), (c) and (d)? How can you connect them to other elements of this course (other readings, for example)?

Throughout the project, feel free to check in with Dr. Nagy to ask questions, discuss your experiences, explain what you are doing and any problems you may have experienced. You can do this in class, through your blog, or in office hours.

Be collaborative and responsible for the success of your team’s report.

Talk with other students to see how they are doing, what problems they may have experienced and how they are responding.

Muchas gracias to Dr. Richard Cameron, Professor emeritus, University of Illinois for the assignment on which this is based.

Last updated Jan. 3, 2023