Blog 15: Research Plan

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)

The this study will analyze the discursive rules  for language negotiating in a multilingual home. Seeing as research on language negotiation within multilingual groups has never been researched in terms of domestic contexts, this research aims to add to the discussion that has been mostly concerned with business situations.

Detailed statement of your research question
What are the features of discursive rules between members of a family in which there are at least two languages being spoken [Portuguese and English primarily]?

List of the information you need to gather
More research needs to be done on the theory others have on how language negotiations generally work. Furthermore, more information about the methodology generally used by others looking into the same topic bearing in mind that it may or may not be appropriate for a domestic discourse analysis project.


A preliminary list of sources
+ Language negotiation in multilingual learning environments
Mariana Bono and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

+Multilingual organizations as ‘linguascapes’: Negotiating the position
of English through discursive practices§
Chris Steyaert *, Anja Ostendorp, Claudine Gaibrois

+ Multilingual dynamics among Portuguese-based migrant contexts
in Europe
Maria Clara Keatinga,
*, Olga Solovova b,1

Plan for gathering your information that includes:

• who/what you will be studying (for example:. students in a College Composition class, how they think about the comments teachers write on their papers)

The participants for this study will be members of my own family, which would include a mother, a father, brother, and two sisters. The father speaks Portuguese and has limited English proficiency; the mother is fluent in in Portuguese and proficient in English and Spanish, and speaks some French as well; the eldest sister is fluent in English and Portuguese, proficient in Spanish and French, and have limited proficiency in Japanese; the brother and youngest sister are fluent in English and the youngest sister has better language profienceny in Portuguese than the brother. The household was chosen because they predominantly speak two languages within the household.

• where you will collect your information (for example:. in interviews at Kean University)

The information will be collected in two group recordings. 

• how many subjects you will study (for example:. 3)

5 including myself

• what methods you will use to conduct your study (for example:. interviews, textual analysis, discourse analysis)

Discourse analysis and Textual analysis

Blog 14: Interview Protocol

Draft an interview protocol for your research project. If you are not doing interviews, draft an interview protocol that you could use if you decided to do your project a different way.

For my project, I am not doing an interview. This is what I would do if I were.

Interview Topic: Discursive rules

+ What languages do you speak?

+ How/where did you learn those languages?

+ Tell me about a few situations where you had to switch languages. Why did you do it?

+ What would be your reasons for switching languages?

+ In terms of language switching rules, do you have anything else you'd like to say about it?

Blog 13: Analysis

Blog 13: Choose the transcript you will analyze for your short analysis project.  Name some of the language moves you see as important to what seems to be going on in your transcript.  Identify the cultural discourses (Dominant Discourses - or other personal Discourses the participants might identify with) that seem to be shaping conversations in your transcript . Pose a research question.  Begin listing/describing what you will use as  evidence to support your discussion of your answer.

Blog 12: Gaming Transcript - Primary and Secondary Discourse

Write about some of the interesting "moves" or language features you notice in the Gaming transcript. What Discourses do Ch and B seem to belong to? What evidence do you have that they belong to those Discourses? What research questions might you ask about what is going on in this transcript? (One important criterion for a good question for a set of data is that there is evidence in the data to support an answer.)

Ch is gathering information by asking questions but is also careful to reassure the interviewee about the confidentiality of the interview.
Ch tries to use language that Ch feels will make B comfortable.
S did you tell your mom [Makes a joke]
S Exactly [shows approval]
S/CH set the tone and the language appropriateness level

S oh that's really funny it backfired on both of you
A it was kind of embarassing, we were like eeuuew, we go to church with him, he's old,
S that's really funny, how old were you then
[Here S is using rather informal language]
Ch so you know lots of software [non standard English]

Some elements of secondary discourse are present only for the purposes of having a common language to refer to.

Ch So the internet course helped you to learn how to explore?
M I guess so, how to research on how to use the computer for research
Ch did it help you with exploring programs
M not really programs, no
Ch So how would you learn a program now?
M Ask somebody
Ch You still wouldn't go through the menu bar and see what each of the tools did, and you know because you can hover over it, or you wouldn't open them up and just play with it
M I might, but I would probably ask somebody
Ch Would you read somethihg
M I would read, yeah. I would read the help things

When M was not providing much information, Ch resorted to asking more questions in an informal [secondary discourse-like] manner. Simple sentences were used rather than longer explanations.

A yeah, and he was bout 20, and he was like our older brother, too, and we were like, so now we know how you pick us girls, all these girls you met were from the chat room
S that's really funny
A that was a weird story
S that's a funny story, and it's funny, it's like a reprise of the story when you were little, and you gave, but it's um
A well this time it's someone I know and I think we lied about our age, too, so we said, every time we were 14 we'd at 3 or 4 extra years, we wanted to sound older (small laugh) and we would change our screen name so many times, cause we're like 'ahh, we want to have a new personality today'
S laughing
A we're like "pinkgirlloves whatever" or there, like our new boyfriends name, like Angelalovewhateverhisnameis - we changed it every week. What can you do?


Comfort level dictates how much of Primary discourse comes through. Otherwise, secondary discourse is used.

Blog 11: Research Outline

1. What you are studying and why; Purpose; what you will want them to do and why
2. Participants - who will be in it
3. That it will be anonymous; how long it will take/ how many times
4. Who will see/ read your project

 

The this study will analyze the discursive rules  for language negotiating in a multilingual home. Seeing as research on language negotiation within multilingual groups has never been researched in terms of domestic contexts, this research aims to add to the discussion that has been mostly concerned with business situations.

 

The participants for this study will be members of my own family, which would include a mother, a father, brother, and two sisters. The father speaks Portuguese and has limited English proficiency; the mother is fluent in in Portuguese and proficient in English and Spanish, and speaks some French as well; the eldest sister is fluent in English and Portuguese, proficient in Spanish and French, and have limited proficiency in Japanese; the brother and youngest sister are fluent in English and the youngest sister has better language profienceny in Portuguese than the brother. The household was chosen because they predominantly speak two languages within the household.

 

The results of this study will be kept confidential; none of the participants will have information that will identify them. The information will be collected in two group interviews. With the permission of the participants, the interview will be recorded, although if the participant is not comfortable with that, notes will be taken to gather the information as best as possible.

 

Only the members of my ENG 3029 research course will see the results of this study. The results of this study may be published in a research journal.

Blog 10: Data Sets

Name and classify some of the important features of the comments in Data Sets 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 & 4.4 (look through all for essays with comments). What patterns do you see? What research questions might you ask of this data set?

Comment Bubbles 

• Provide more specific criticism
• Positive and negative criticism as they occur.
• Shorter sentences and phrases
• Many questions
• Authoritative Voice
• Repetitive

Intro and ending comments 

• Provided synthesized criticism; holistic
• Emphasis on either positive or negative
• Narrative form
• Lists
• Personal Voice

Research Questions

• Which form of commenting provides the student with the most helpful, constructive feedback?
• How does the teacher's notions about students' most important needs influence the kind and the frequency of comments?
• How does students' confidence in their writing influence how they perceive criticism?

Blog 9: Paper Topic

1. Identify your focus.  This is a general statement of what you are interested in.

Discourse Analysis - Language Negotiations in a Multilingual Home

2. Identify your research question:  What in particular do you want to find out?  State your question in as specific terms as you can: the age/identity of your subjects, the location of your study, the particular activities/features you will focus on. 

Your research question is really a group of related questions, stated in specific terms, where you narrow in on what in particular you want to learn about in your study.

How do members of a family in which there are at least two languages being spoken [Portuguese and English primarily] negotiate language appropriateness?

What factors influence the language appropriateness?

What are the rules for this kind of negotiating?


3. Who has studied this question and what do they say.  For this prompt - mention any article that you have read where researchers have explored answers to your question.  If you can't find any articles - tell me something about what you searched for and what you found (even if it wasn't right).

+ Language negotiation in multilingual learning environments

Mariana Bono and Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer

+Multilingual organizations as ‘linguascapes’: Negotiating the position

of English through discursive practices§

Chris Steyaert *, Anja Ostendorp, Claudine Gaibrois

+ Multilingual dynamics among Portuguese-based migrant contexts

in Europe

Maria Clara Keatinga,

*, Olga Solovova b,1

 4.What do I need to find out to answer this question?  This prompt is to help you clarify and deepen your research question.

More research needs to be done on the theory others have on how language negotiations generally work. Furthermore, more information about the methodology generally used by others looking into the same topic bearing in mind that it may or may not be appropriate for a domestic discourse analysis project.

 5.  What do I need to do to gather information that will answer my question?
 This prompt is to help you think about how to design your study.  Who will you work with?  Where?  what will you do together?

I need to record and document my family talking among themselves. Afterwards, I will transcribe those recordings and analyze my data to see whether or not there are any patterns that will aid in formulating my own conclusion.

Professor:

So far, I think I really just need to work on finding the research and collecting data. I can't think of anything that I need help with, but I'll keep you posted! [pun intended]