Pragmatics ‘Action analysis’ project
Winter 2005
Analysis project
Think of this project as an ‘action analysis’. I would like you to look at some spoken interaction and, using the theories and concepts we have discussed in class to analyze the action that the language is implementing in that interaction. The best analyses are those that start with your curiosity. Have you ever wondered why people say/do certain things in certain contexts?
I do data driven research which means that for me, the research questions come up after looking at some data. Maybe you are a person who will need to start by looking at some data first to see something that interests you.
What to record and analyze?
These are examples of data that past students have collected for similar projects:
television talk-show
radio call-in programs
news interviews
a family gathering
a series of business meetings
casual conversation among friends over dinner
telephone conversation
service encounter (buying something at a shop)
a television puppet show
classroom interaction
office hour meeting with academic advisor
conversation among friends who did not share a first language
How much data to record?
It doesn’t hurt to record more than you will need. And you don’t need a lot of data to do an action analysis that you write about in 6-15 pages.
If you record an interaction to use for your project,
-Use video if possible
-Try to use equipment that has good audio quality
-Before recording anyone’s interaction, you must get their oral consent. It is best
if you get their written consent as well. Below is a template for a generic type of
consent form.
How to do the analysis?
If you know what you are looking for, start making collections of the particular phenomenon in your data. Describe the phenomenon. Describe the context, the people (speaker, recipients, and other participants), the sequential point in the talk when the phenomenon occurs and ask yourself what action is occurring and why. Use the theoretical concepts discussed in class to help you make sense of what you are seeing and note when the theory doesn’t seem to fit reality. You may want to compare the way that different participants in your interaction implement particular actions or you may focus on describing the methods of a single participant.
You will be making claims about what is happening with respect to theory and with respect to evidence in the talk itself. You need not transcribe the entire interaction you record. Just transcribe what you need for the purposes of your own analysis and what is relevant to put into the write up of your analysis.
Look at some analysis papers (in the packet: Heath, Pomerantz, Schegloff, others) to give you ideas about how to do your own analysis.
Deadlines/process
Week 4: first proposal
Tell me what data you are going to record or have recorded and why you chose
these data. Tell me what you are hoping to analyze. More than one idea at this
stage is fine. I will give feedback which will, hopefully, help you refine your
analysis.
Week 7: second proposal
Develop your proposal into a one-two page document in which you tell me how
your analysis is proceeding and what questions you have still at this point. You
should be pretty specific at this point and be looking for ways to refine your
analysis, ways to make your analysis more focused.
This is a sample format for a consent form for recording people. You may change the wording but the ideas in bold type must be included in any type of consent form.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I am a student at Portland State University and am taking a class in the department of Applied Linguistics called ‘Pragmatics’. My professor is Dr. John Hellermann. I am recording an example of spoken interaction in order to analyze how language implements action.
While there will be no direct benefit to you, the results of my study will help increase our understanding of how people structure their language in use in order to implement action. Your participation in this recording is completely voluntary and you may withdraw from participation at any time during the recording.
Once the recording is made, it will be analyzed for a report to be made to the class. The recording will be used for research purposes only. In reporting the interaction, your real names will not be used. I will take precautions to keep your participation confidential by not associating your real name or place names with the tape or transcript. (The tape will be destroyed in 5/10 years/immediately after use for analysis for this class.)
If you have further questions, please contact me at ____________ or Dr. Hellermann at 503-725-8732.
I have read the above and give my consent to be recorded for this study.
__________________________________________ ________________
Your signature Date
2