Course materials for/by Peter L.
Patrick. May contain copyright material used for educational purposes.
Please respect copyright.
For LG554, Univ of
(This assignment is a good choice to pair with the Descriptive Report assignment)
The task
In this
assignment you will:
o
Become
familiar with the interview module, a coherent set of carefully
scripted, vernacularly-phrased questions which build on local knowledge. The
modules are used in the sociolinguistic interview.
o
Work
on two modules: revise an existing one from Q-
o
Use
your chosen modules in a sociolinguistic interview.
o
Report
on them in the Module Report.
Length: As with all our assignments in LG554
and 654, you should write a report of 1500 words or more. I will not penalise
reports of up to 3000 words, but if you can express yourself clearly in 1500,
please do. Under-length (ie, under-1500 words) reports may suffer from lack of
content and be marked accordingly.
The sociolinguistic interview module materials
(Q-
o
Q-
o
For an introduction to Q-
o
Selected modules are also available online here.
Begin by reading Labov
1984. The key discussion of the development and use of modules is on pp 33-39:
o
Labov,
William. 1984. Field methods of the Project in Linguistic Change and Variation.
In
If you can’t get hold of a library
copy, I can lend you a copy of it.
The purpose of the modules, in a nutshell, is to retain some of the advantages of
the survey interview –
§
repeating
questions that work
o in identical form,
o and even order
§
[though
the order of modules is flexible, ordering of questions within them is
generally stable]
§
identically
across a sample population,
§
testing
and controlling these elements tightly –
while moving in the direction of everyday
conversational norms and profiting from ethnographic observations–
§
using
vernacular forms of speech,
§
focusing
on locally-relevant topics,
§
incorporating
natural topic development into the module structure,
§
modelling
the role of the IVer on conversational co-participants (not eg journalistic or
social-science interviewers), in terms of
o length of utterances,
o form of utterances (many will not
actually be in interrogative forms),
o values or assumptions embedded in
utterances, and
o speaker involvement displayed by IVer.
In short, the modules are the heart of
the sociolinguistic interview, which is a special type of semi-structured
interview.
The sociolinguistic interview is designed, and admitted, to be
neither a classic structured survey interview nor a spontaneous conversation,
and this is its strength. The flexible but systematic interview modules, and many of the individual questions, that we will
take as models were highly developed and refined by use in hundreds of
interviews. Of course, most of them were designed years ago, for very different
cities in another country – they were very ethnographically relevant for their
time and place, but may not be for ours.
Our goal is to learn to
adapt them, following the principles of their creation for what they’re worth,
indulging in criticism only for practical reasons:- to
improve them as tools.
But
obviously not all are suitable for investigation in
·
Some
subjects (and expressions) are highly/distinctively local to NYC or US East
Coast cities
·
Some
subjects (and expressions) are out-of-date, or regionally inappropriate
·
Many
were developed for use among white ethnic, urban, working-class populations,
which may not be the focus of your investigation.
·
Many
were designed for use by a male investigator who was from the same region, and
intimately familiar with the cities, being investigated – thus maximised a
"shared knowledge" which you may or may not be able to claim.
Revising Q-Gen-II Modules, and
Developing New Ones
Your assignment is to develop new modules
on important topics, following the principles evident in Q-
You may also select pre-existing (Q-
Ž
What worked? What didn't?
Ž
What question, perhaps not in
the module, came up repeatedly and should be added?
Ž
What choice of wording proved unsuitable?
What terms of reference did interviewees use that we should adopt?
The point of the exercise is not to
mirror what you actually did – unless that happens to coincide with what
really works! – nor is it to create a module suited to
your personal interactional style (that’s the kind of adjustment you make on
the spot, instead). What you should be doing is
·
Improving
& developing a tool versatile enough to be used by IVers different from
you;
·
Localizing
questions to
·
Incorporating
knowledge you’ve gained in IVs into the form of the questions.
·
Think
not in terms of justifying your own results, but of
o Contributing to a project bigger than
your own,
§
One
that includes future researchers and students.
Some revisions will be largely content-based.
o For example, the topic ‘Fights’ nowadays could bring up the question of knife or gun use: should you just add "guns" to the CheckList (CL) in Q-Gen-II, Module 3, 1.2? or is more required?
o Do the questions in Q-Gen-II, City Services, Module 13, cover the important issues for this area?
o Should you bother to ask the School questions (Module 15) of a recent immigrant non-native-English speaker? What school experiences of theirs might be (more) relevant? (How about adult English classes here?)
Answers to such questions may require
you to completely redesign modules, or invent new ones. In doing this, be
guided not by your own preconceptions
but by the people you interview: what they tell you, what they don't say, their reactions to your questions. Also consider other local
sources: local newspapers, radio chat shows, local history archives, local TV
news.
After deciding on the
subject of a new module, and selecting modules to revise, you should get
together with other class members to draft and discuss new Qs or changes, each
contributing their ideas. But that's only the first step. The second is to try them out in IVs. This is essential, since otherwise we
won't know if your theories/ideas are of any value. Especially when trying out
new Qs, try to stick to the form you came up with – or, again, we'll be unable
to evaluate them.
Ideally, each new or
revised module should get more than one trial, i.e. be used by more than one
person or in more than one interview. It's a good idea to develop modules
together with someone else in the class, and both use them in your interviews.
Each person should submit a separate Module Report, though.
Principles of Q-
Make certain
your new/revised questions follow the principles
of Q-
·
Tightly
organized, essential questions on coherent topics of great interest to the
community (and thus, to us)
·
Brief,
pithy questions that go right to the heart of the matter, and ELICIT opinions
rather than expressing your own (unspoken) attitudes
·
Questions
ordered in a sensible sequence, to closely approximate natural conversations as
they might be conducted by community members
·
Questions
that stimulate particular speech events or genres (personal narratives,
childhood recollections, political opinions, strong social norms and mores
likely to be expressed in the language of emotions)
·
Questions
that follow the principle of feeding back local knowledge, assumptions and
attitudes:
·
that
presuppose what IVees presuppose,
·
call
things what IVees call them, and
·
indicate an "insider" stance where that's appropriate.
Reporting
on the New/Revised Modules should occur in 2 stages.
1) The draft stage consists of
drawing up new Qs (or Qs revised from Q-
At this point, you’ll bring them to
class and share them with us for suggestions, also emailing me a copy.
2) You may begin
testing them now in an interview (don’t wait until you get feedback).
Once you've used them
in an interview, revise them based on that experince, and then use the revised
form in your following interviews.
At some
point in the term I’ll
ask you to report orally to the class on a module you’ve devised:
·
For
New modules, bring in your first draft of the questions (and also the final
form, revised after testing it in one or more interviews, if you’ve been able
to do this).
·
For
Revised Old modules, bring in a copy of the Old (e.g. Q-Gen-II) form and the Revised one, or some other way of highlighting easily the
changes you’ve made. Make significant changes! not
just a word here or there -- or else create a brand-new module.
·
In
either case: a brief account of how the first version worked (and/or, for New
ones, of the IV discussion which suggested the topic to you – if that’s how you
thought of it),
·
and an account of your attempts to
refine it, also with any actual quotes transcribed from you or the IVee.
·
Also,
play a short section of a recording for us, illustrating the module in action.
Use the Modules in a Sociolinguistic Interview
You will now conduct at least one sociolinguistic
interview, and use your modules in it. (See other class materials about
conducting interviews.)
o
It should be a complete interview, even if it is not
a long one. That is, you cannot just begin with the first Q of your module
(unless it is designed to be an introductory module, e.g. Demographics,
Q-
o
You should conduct the ethical release procedure
with your subject, using the ELLP Release Form.
o
You should fill out an Interview Report Form.
o
Of course, use your Modules in it! You will not read
them, as you will have memorized them.
o
If you use the Danger of Death module, you may use
just the chief sections 1, 2 and 3. You'll have to think about when is the
right moment in an interview to use it – are both you and the speaker
comfortable? Is there evidence of rapport, of a conversation-like flow? How
will you transition into this module? What will you do if you don't get the desired
response: push, wait, move to another module?
o
Be sure to make a good-quality recording, and label
it properly.
o
If you have the oportunity, do a follow-up interview
with a different speaker belonging to the same speech community. Use the
revised module (ideally after your Analysis, below) and see if your performance
improves.
Analyze Your Use of the Modules
o
You will then listen back to and reflect on the
interview, noting how you used the modules and how the speaker reacted.
o
It's a good idea to transcribe the section of the
interview which used the modules in question. At the very least, transcribe
your utterances and compare them to the module as you wrote or revised it: how
closely did you follow what you had planned to say? What did you change? Did
you p[ause, stumble or stop and reformulate your
questions? Did you repeat yourself or elaborate? Did you give the speaker
enough time to answer? What back-channel signals, if any, did you provide? Did
you take up an insider or outsider stance? Did you make use of any shared
knowledge?
o
How exactly did they respond? Were their responses
minimal, or elaborated? Were they (un)willing? Fluent
or halting? (Un)Enthusiastic? Did either of you overlap (interrupt) the other?
Did they produce a narrative, or introduce a new topic (tangent) of their own?
Did you limit their speech, or let them go?
Module Report
should include comments
on modules you’ve worked on. At least:
§
Give
basic information on the interview(s) you used them in. It's fine to report on just
one interview, though if you have interesting changes or improvements in a
second one, that would also be good to tell us about.
§
Refer
to relevant recordings and transcriptions of key moments, and your analysis of
the exchange, addressing the questions above.
§
Please
note and discuss any IVer “blunders” (see Briggs 1986).
§
Describe
the IVee’s tone, expression or gestures at significant moments in use of the
module.
§
Give
correct Recording and IV Numbers (you will be shown how to write these),
§
and
give or email me a copy of your (digital) recording,
§
and
include a counter-number or time-code location for any parts you transcribe or
discuss,
§
so that someone else (me!) can find and
listen to it easily.
§
Include
a copy of the relevant IV Report Form, and the ELLP Release form.
§
Discuss
how the subject of the module relates to larger concerns of the interview
community – please ground this firmly in what people have actually told you, or
you have observed.
§
If
you performed the Danger of Death module,
please reflect on it, using these questions as a guide.
§
What
is the significance of the Danger of Death topic to the speaker? What themes
did it evoke? Did it suggest directions you might want to pursue in future
interviews? Did you pursue any?
§
What
is its significance to you as a sociolinguist? Why do we use it in interviews?
§
Why
did it work to elicit vernacular speech for Labov in
§
Why
have some other researchers criticised its usefulness? (See eg Wolfson 1976 and
references on p47 of Macaulay 2009)
§
Which
of these experiences did your own resemble? Why do you think that was?
§
What
are the implications for researchers collecting vernacular data in places
different to NYC or Essex? Ie, what advice would you give to other
sociolinguists, based on what you have learned? Make it general, principles
adaptable to other circumstances.
§
If
appropriate, comment on ability to use a local vernacular; detect appropriate
speech events for performance in this speech community; and create appropriate
contexts for such questions.
If you have
chosen to write a Descriptive Report for
your next assignment, the Module Report will lead nicely into it. You should
not expect to duplicate the content of the Module Report in the Descriptive
Report – just assume they form a set of documents to be read together as part
of your general research report. Instead, you'll refer briefly to the Module
Report at appropriate points in the Descriptive Report, and give
correspondingly more time to other aspects of the latter.
Please now read fully the directions for the Descriptive IV Report.
Details of Assessment for LG554
LG554
Sociolinguistic Methods page
Last updated 20
September 2009