Language investigation ideas
A good investigation will cover each of the Assessment Objectives.
To get a strong AO1 mark an investigation needs to use demanding terminology accurately and incisively, but the specifics will be different for different investigations - ideally cover a range of features and keep an eye open for surprising or unanticipated features in your data.
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Language investigation ideas: Accent and dialect
Does shop assistants’ speech converge with the speech style of their customers?
A version of Labov’s study can easily be done anywhere there are a variety of similar shops (or publicly accessible institutions like sports centres or libraries).
Language investigation ideas: Ethnicity and social networks
Do second and third generations of immigrant families converge less with local Anglo English dialects?
Research by Sharma and Sankaran measured the use of non-standard British Asian and Cockney features in the speech of two generations of British Asian people. They found that the older generation were converging much more dramatically with people they spoke with.
Language investigation ideas: Language and gender
Do female MMA fighters use ‘masculine’ speech features?
Given combat sports are a violent and competitive environment, they might be thought of as a stereotypically masculine environment. An investigation could look at whether female participants use features that researchers have claimed are more commonly used by men.
The obvious core of the data would need to be transcripts of interviews with female MMA fighters, but then data for comparison could include transcripts of interviews with male MMA fighters, or transcripts of interviews with female athletes in other (non-violent or not stereotypically masculine) sports. It might also be interesting to look at differences in how fighters speak after wins or losses, or in interviews from the start of their careers compared to when they’re more established. If they've appeared in more casual media environments like podcast discussions or chat shows, those might offer a contrast to ringside interviews.
AO1 – features that researchers have claimed are masculine or feminine (e.g. all of Lakoff’s ideas for ‘women’s language’, having their topics taken up, face-threatening turns, interrupting and overlapping etc…)
AO2 - work by people who’ve claimed genderlects exist – Lakoff, Tannen, Fishman, Trudgill (for differing male/female use of non-standard forms) etc.., Zimmerman and West re overlapping/interrupting, people who support the Gender Similarities Hypothesis (Cameron and Hyde), Bassiouney for non-standard gendered speech in Arabic, and O’Barr and Atkins’ work that suggests that context and social role affects speech style more than gender.
AO3 – important contextual factors would include the idea that combat sports are violent and competitive, something that would be seen as male, traditionally, but could also consider things like what sort of media interview is it? Is there an obligation to hype an upcoming fight (perhaps by pretending there’s real animosity between the competitors)? How established are the fighters involved? How old are they? Are they winning a lot or losing? How high-status are they within the sport? Do they have a comfortable relationship with whoever’s interviewing them? Have they had media training that recommends a certain style of interview? Do they speak differently in different sorts of interview (e.g. maybe a ringside interview after a match versus how they may speak on a podcast).
Language investigation ideas: Social networks, ethnicity and brokers
Do different social networks adopt new features at different rates? (or: Are specific individuals spreading novel features through their social networks?)
To work well, this idea would need a sharp ear for new features and access to specific sorts of social networks.
Language investigation ideas: World Englishes and gender
If genderlects exist, do people who learn English as a second language display features that have been identified as gendered?
If men and women speak in distinct ways (as has been claimed by Lakoff, Tannen and others), it would be interesting to see whether people who have learned English as a second language display these traits – presumably if the (claimed) difference is primarily due to biological factors (e.g.