LIN 351 Week 3 HW

The purpose of most the assignments for this course is to:

• give you hands-on experience with extracting, coding, and analyzing a linguistic variable from natural speech data, using a specialized freeware packages, ELAN, for transcribing and some basic tools for statistical analysis
  
• provide you with the opportunity to engage in the sociolinguistic discovery process
  
• give you practice comparing your results to previously published results of studies of sociolinguistic variation

This is what sociolinguists actually do, so you’ll get a chance to see how each step of the research process works.

For this assignment, you will turn in answers to A and B in Part 1.
There is nothing to hand in for Part 2, but it is essential prep for the next assignments.

Part 1: Sociolinguistic variables and categories

The main goal of this part of the assignment is to work with terminology so that we are all on the same page when we use language to talk about language, and to get familiar with the concept of a sociolinguistic variable. It should help you think back on what you learned in LIN251.

(A)  The linguistic variable

 

 

Think of five different ways that English varies. (Or you may present variables from another language you speak. In that case, please provide glosses.) You might think of lexical, phonological, or syntactic variables. Choose at least one variable that is phonological (or phonetic) and at least one that is lexical. Model your responses on this example, showing the variable, all of its variants, and stating what type of variable it is.  You’ll need to create a name for your variable. Put it in parentheses. Remember that all variants of a variable share the same meaning.

 

 

(B) Sociolinguistic categories (also called external factors)

 

For each of the 5 variables that you gave in (A), briefly discuss external factors that correlate to the selection of each variant. Although not all will be relevant for each variable you think of, you’ll want to think about:

 

• social factors (e.g., age, gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity)
• geographic factors (where the speaker is from)
• stylistic factors (how formal the situation is, who the speaker is talking to, what type of discourse the speaker is engaged in)

 

Sample response: For the variable (evening meal), the word ‘supper’ is preferred by Canadians age 30-69 while ‘dinner’ is preferred by Canadians over the age of 70 (from Jack Chambers' Dialect Topography website).

You may either rely on your own intuitions for this part, or do some quick research. If you do research, then you must cite your source(s). If you don't cite sources, we will assume that your response is based on your own knowledge.)

 

Part 2: Getting set up for the project

Here, we will all work on the same sociolinguistic variable: the pronunciation of (r) in Boston English.

Step 1: Download the following paper from Quercus. Check the “Reading” module. Or link to the paper directly.

Irwin, T. & N. Nagy. 2007. Bostonians /r/ speaking: A quantitative look at (r) in Boston. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics 13.2. Selected papers from NWAV 35. 135-47.

You will need to read this article in order to understand the issues involved in the study of the variable (r).

A number of data files are required for this project. They are all accessed through the Corpora in the Classroom website. In this site, select the New England Blizzard corpus. You will be asked to review and e-sign a corpus use form indicating that you understand how you may and may not use the data (it's restricted to use for this class's assignments). After you do that, you can see the files in the corpus.

Step 2: Download the zipped recording file (.zip) and the corresponding transcript file (.eaf) for at least 3 of the speakers listed in Table 1 below. Save the files together in a folder on a computer that you will be able to find and use all semester.

The .eaf files are the transcribed recordings that will serve as your raw data files. There is no need to print these files. Rather, read through these instructions first, which include tips on how to deal with these data files. This document will guide you step-by-step through the assignment and the analysis.

THE SAMPLE DESIGN: You will be working with data from six speakers, all from Boston. Here is some info about them.

The Sample Design

Speaker code	Sex	Age	Ethnicity
F27W	female	27	White
F57A	female	57	African-American
F70W	female	70	White
M18A	male	18	African-American
M33A	male	33	African-American
M65W	male	65	White

Step 3: Download the software program ELAN and install it on your computer. ELAN is freeware that runs on Mac, Windows and Linux.

On this Download page you will also see links to the manual for ELAN (Documentation). Download or bookmark this for future reference.

It will simplify things to install the application in the same folder as the .wav and .eaf files you will use -- this should be an option at least for Mac-users.

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Updated September 19, 2024