Sociolinguistics: Research Report (for MQuni)

linguistics degree

The 'if' formula below, was quite hard to come up with.

=IF(AND(OR(H490="Private",H490="Catholic"),K490>=0,OR(J490="professional",J490="student",J490="retired")),1,IF(H490="Private",1,2))

Usefulness for ELT: it is important to maintain an outer social context within class. A look into the phonetic nature of language as related to sociolinguistic context gives me a general sense that there are phonetic patterns among individuals, demographics and regions and gives me a sense of how these variations are transmitted. 

It could possibly be useful in identifying and seeing a variation for what it is, rather than a student's one-time slip or error of pronunciation – is it related to a pattern of change? I could give better guidance as a result. 

Bhushan, R., (2011). The sociology of language teaching and learning. Theory and Practice of Language 
Studies, 1, 309–311. DOI: 10.4304/tpls.1.3.309-311

changes made to report heed this advice

Speech Acoustics: Research Report (for MQuni)

linguistics degree

grade 69%

This report looks at acoustic measurements of vowel sounds to compare with already present phonetic sound change in Sydney speakers. 

– The introduction could have included more textbook citation where I mention vowel measurement techniques (Johnson, K. (2012) Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics, 3rd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, Cambridge). 

– Plenary feedback for the whole unit expressed making sure any hypotheses link well into the literature mentioned – some broader hypotheses had been made about Australian English language change by students – my draft was originally like this – the scope of the assignment is not that large, only evidence of my own acoustic vowel space can be reported on here with a discussion on how it compares to other patterns in Australian English. However, I do include comments about language change, which can be removed. 

– The aim should not have included anything about language change, especially as it is a study of one participant (me) and not longitudinal. 

– There was room for more analysis of the Castellano vowel space, and consideration about how it maps onto the Australian vowel space. 

Aside from utilising text boxes, I am still unsure of how to use Charis font with any other font as it seems to create odd line spacing in the document.