English Language A2 Investigation - HELP

Hello everyone,

Looking for some help with my english language investigation.

I've been able to come up with some ideas, but struggling to make them work.

One of them is looking at legal language, and how despite plain english movements/acts, legal language has remained very similar.

Do anyone know..

a) where I can get old legal documents (i.e. contracts, T&C's...)
b) of any plain english acts/movements?



Thank you very much!

To me, this seems like you won't be able to find enough sources and theories to support your investigation I'm afraid. I also don't know what you plan on investigating... What about Legal Language, what do you want to look into = how it has remained similar? Personally, I don't think you'd find any sources on this. There are LOADS of laws that have not changed for centuries because it just doesn't need to be changed.

If you are interested in Legal/Law/Politics/Government stuff, it would be easier to look at something you see in House of Parliament to be honest. Like doing a transcript. It's far easier than what you are thinking about doing.

A2 is incredibly difficult, and the Lang Invest is the hardest part of A2, so don't complicate things with having or wanting your Invest to be "different". It just makes things unnecessarily difficult for you.

Well my hypothesis was going to be along the lines of - "Despite plain english campaigns legal language has remained linguistically similar over the years" or something like that.

And I would look into the discourse, lexis, semantics, grammar etc. of both old and new legal documents. I just can't seem to find any old legal documents.

Yes I know legal language hasn't changed much over the years, that's why my investigation would be looking at how it's similar.. despite plain english campaigns and acts.



Other ideas I had were:

a) look at language in commercial adverts compared to public information films on television.

b) comparing radio sports commentary and TV sports commentary

c) do 20th century gender theories still apply today? and does age effect the reliability of these theories?



Thanks

I now understand what you are aiming at. Your wording of your hypothesis just needs changing. What sort of old documents are you wanting to look at?

Unfortunately, I think your hypothesis is actually too sophisticated for an A-level approach. It sounds like something you would do as a dissertation and PhD research. All the sources you are searching for, won't be online. You would have to go to museums and libraries that store legal documents since the dawn of time. If not, perhaps uni libraries, seeing if they have any old legal documents. Obviously this would depend on where you live. Also, your Invest is situated on Written Language (so logically speaking), you would need to look for these copies of written language in hard-form, rather than over the internet.

a). Is fine, but what sort of language will you be investigating? However I am unsure on what you mean by "public information films"... I think you should compare something of a similar length or medium. For instance, comparing written language in advertisement, to that of spoken or multi-modal modes of advertisement.

b). Absolutely fine. BUT, my friend tried to do Radio. The only issue that you have is it's hard to find podcasts and I'm unsure that you have any devices that allows you to pause, rewind or stop any of those. You may find some on BBC Radio or something, but I don't think you can rewind it, which may become annoying if you do not have a good memory. TV Commentary, is excellent. The Commonwealth Games would be interesting. Something like how do different gender commentators use language when describing the sexes; language of male commentators and how they use language to describe men's gymnastics to that of women's gymnastics for example.

c). A straightforward and classic hypothesis. You should fine A LOT of useful and insightful research on the internet.

Feel free to ask anymore questions. I am here to help

Wow thanks for the detailed reply.

Well I was just hoping to either visit my local uni or the archives office for the town and see what they had. I wanted to find some old contracts or terms and conditions, basically anything that's legally binding. Then I was going to find the equivalent of that in modern day terms and compare them. Hopefully they would be quite similar lexically, grammatically, phonologically etc. and I could then just talk about how plain English campaigns have failed.

a) By public information films I mean short advert type clips on the TV. Made by government usually, to inform people of the danger of smoking, drink driving, or THINK BIKE campaigns etc. I'm not too sure at what to look at though.

b) Yes I tried to find some old rugby radio commentaries but can't find much. Would have to be something from the commonwealth. Again, not too sure what to actually look at linguistically though. How could I compare TV and Radio commentaries??

c) I really wanted to do this idea because gender theories are all over the internet and in books so I'd have lots to use. However, recording natural conversation and avoiding observers paradox is quite hard. The hypothesis for this one would have been: "Are 20th century female gender theories still applicable today? And does age affect the reliability of these theories?"

Thanks

If you can get your archives, then sure go for it. But I think you need to make sure that you're looking at something that is focused on English Language and not Law or the changing of Law. What Language topic you could focus on would be Occupation within the Legal System. However, you would need a lot of linguists and theorists about Language Change especially. However this is not a lot of these and most of them, you would have to trawl through thesis' and dissertations if you wanted to find something.

a). Well, that would very hard to try and analyse Language from that, as the type of words go with a particular voice and images that go with adverts. So trying to convey reason on why language has been used in those adverts would be quite hard without referring to images being used in the videos. I had to do a similar thing to this at GCSE called Digital Communication. It was a 4 hour exam analysing media and language being used, with close attention to charity adverts! I think the idea is good, but it would have to focus a bit more on media content, rather than the language content.

b). Well, you could just look at what I suggested. If not, then perhaps just compare a few TV commentaries instead. Focus on something of a topic on English Language. Your main focus would perhaps be gender. You could look into whether Men are more likely to interrupt than women, do female commentators use more sophisticated language than the male ones, etc, etc. It would be good to look at Gender in TV commentaries as it's hardly scripted - for the introduction of the event and closing but that is about it. Other than it, it is spontaneous talk. You could also look at jargon and Occupation with use of specialist language; so gymnastics (I like gymnastics) they use Gymnastics jargon and etc, you could look at how men and women use jargon in the sports fields. I know that the female presenter used lots more specialist words than men. Perhaps you could find research into why this seems to be the case? Something like my few suggestions would go a long way.

c). Well you can either do what my teacher suggested to us: either go and secretly record your friends talking or whatever your age range is between. Or you can do something similar to what a few of us did: we watched shows and made our own transcripts from that. I did Celebrity Big Brother when Louisa (from Apprentice), Dappy and that guy from Blue was in it. Might have been 2013 or 2014 one, can't remember. But it was just easier in my opinion. Some others did Only Way is Essex, Geordie Shore, and shows like that when it came to their coursework.

I've been looking everywhere on the internet, including my local archives office registry they have online.. and I just can't find anything good. So think I'm going to have to skip the legal idea, no decent data.

I'm getting really worried now, because first draft has to be in when we return after summer (like 5th of September I think) and I don't even have a topic yet!

I think gender should be easy enough for me to do, I just don't know what data to use. I thought of maybe looking at female and male chefs on TV. But again, can't think of what to look at (as you can tell, I'm not the most linguistically talented student - suck at english!)

I've been trying to find sports commentaries to match up with their TV counterpart games - but no joy!

Then I looked for some commonwealth 2014 footage which involved male and female speakers, but it's all mainly planed speech - not spontaneous. So can't really use gender theories for it...

I'm so stuck and worried

I do think it is wise of you to skip the Legal idea.

Well, first thing's first - don't panic. You have quite enough time to get started. We just need to find a suitable topic.

However, I am puzzled over the fact your teacher decided to not help you with anything over the 6 weeks... Whereas we did coursework after we finished the topics for the exam. What exam board are you with btw?

If you are interested in that stuff, then you can go for it. You need to look at the topics and what linguists say about men and women's language patterns. I know for example someone looked at just male chefs and compared Gordon Ramsey's language to that over other chefs like Jamie Oliver and looked at how they challenge and accept what researchers have said about men's language.
Once you have found a sub-topic within your chosen field, it becomes easier.

Well, it's not uncommon to research planned speeches, relating them to gender. Many linguists have done this where they have asked certain questions to get a response and tally it up with other evidences and etc. However, spontaneous is easier to do.

You should try and not get things like interviews or anything but instead try and get commentators commenting on the actual performance of the sport - some things as I previously mentioned will be pre-planned, but the majority of what's being said will be spontaneous.

I'm with AQA. Our teacher did help us, but I was the last person to do a presentation (just how the randomiser went) so I didn't have much time to change my ideas based on what he told me. Now I have realised these ideas (TV adverts and Law) won't work. That's why I currently have no topic.

Are there theorists then that have work on just male language? That i could apply to male presenters on TV? Surely everything they say on TV is pre-scripted though? Even chef's on their cookery programs..

Yeah I'm really struggling to find actual commentaries of things, BBC iPlayer shows event's - for example the six nations 2014 which I really wanted to do... however, they aren't available on the BBC website because they were too long ago.

AQA, okay. Do you know which side? AQA A or AQA B? If you don't know; for AS did you do Language and Mode and Children's Language Acquisition for your exam? If you did, that means you are with AQA A. If not, you are with AQA B.

Yes to being theorists working on male language. Now, do not be fooled. This is coursework; at A2 which is an Investigation that YOU have to do. So it means a LOT of research and unfamiliar names that you can use. You do not have to use the names that are said in the AQA textbook. AQA advises students to branch out more and discover other linguists and theorist. I also used psychologists in my coursework. It took me at least about 3 weeks to trawl through hours and hours of reading dissertations and thesis on Google Books to look at my chosen topic. However, yours could take a lot less time.

Shows like Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares will not be scripted because they are filmed in such a quick-paced, stressful environment, it wouldn't need to be scripted or pre-planned. Some other ideas on male language was comparing and contrasting Alan Carr's male language to see how different or the same it was to female presenters or compared it to Graham Norton's. So a look on sexuality or femininity could work too.

Sports commentaries are quite hard to find. My friend used breakfast and afternoon commentaries instead of sports because they were too fast past. I would suggest using something from TV programmes if you that's your thing.

If you tell me which AQA you are with, I can tell you what they you should be investigating.

I'm with AQA B I think, categorising texts + language and power was my AS exam topic.

The more and more I think about it, I would quite like to do something with language and gender. So I need to start thinking of ideas for this...

Could I perhaps do the whole.. '20th century male gender theories don't apply today' then use Gordon.R and Jamie.O to prove this??

Okay, so stick with that one then!

Your idea is fine. But you must now reel it in now and look at specific elements that researchers have found. I would change the wording slightly, remember it's a language investigation, not a gender investigation. You should rephrase your investigation into a question instead.

I forgot what my title was but this was my Hypothesis:

"My hypothesis will intend to show how profanity and swearing defines gender in which it is spoken from how the pragmatism surrounding the profanity affects how we interpret meaning from swear words in conversation between same-sex and different sex conversations."

So my title could be something like; to what extent does profanity and swearing creating meaning in language? Or something like that.

The sub-topics that I looked at were:

Aggressive Swearing
Emphatic Swearing
Humourous Swearing

So if I were you, I would look at what linguists say about men's language and use subheadings. So men are likely to interrupt conversation is the generic one because of their dominance. So you can use a heading and start from there. That's how I did it and it kept me focus all the way.

Perhaps you could do the same?

Whoa that's a very sophisticated hypothesis!

See this is what now confuses me, this part. I'm okay with coming up with ideas, but I don't then know what to look at. So say I focus on male chefs. I get transcripts of multiple Jamie Oliver shows, and then multiple Gordon Ramsey, and another chef etc.

What do I actually analysis and look at? Do I see if they follow 20th language gender theories? Do I see how the 3 chefs differ from each other? THIS is the bit that confuses me most

Thank-you. I worked hard on my coursework as I found it the hardest part of my A2 Language.

Well the advice my teacher gave us was to literally do LOTS and LOTS of transcripts with your focus in mind. So for me, it was just record anything that had ANY swearing it... From that, I was lucky in actually finding specific dissertations and thesis' on emphatic swearing, etc etc.

What you need to do now is search Google and research male language theories or something of that sort. Look at what's there and available, then tailor what you find to your investigation. Don't tailor your investigation into your research, do the reverse.

It will take a lot of time. But first I would get as many transcripts as much as possible, then tailor your investigation into your research.

Get your scripts, annotate them and see what things you can look out for. Then you should then research your main focus. After you have done this, try to start your introduction, hypothesis and then your methodology.

I've been doing loads of thinking over the past day or so, and thought of loads of ideas - but they all won't work in some way or another.

So the only idea I have left is this one: Investigate how chefs adapt and change their language based upon the demographic of their TV show.

Looking at Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey. Need help coming up with a hypothesis, but basically yeah... that's it, looking at how chef's alter their language based on their audience

Think it would work or??

Personally, I don't think you would have any more time in thinking about ideas. Unless they were more straightforward then you present one? Write me some of your ideas. About 3 and I shall tell you if it can work?

Hmmm, your one sounds very interesting indeed. However, I'm unsure one what you mean by "demographic" are you on about them speaking to different people in their show, or looking at their audiences who watch the show at home?

I think it would work perfectly. However, you now need to think of a methodology. Forget about your hypothesis. I actually wrote my hypothesis after I did half my investigation essay. You need to find out how you plan to collect all your data and research

You're right, I don't have any more time - need to get started on this asap.

Um, no by demographic I mean the audience of their shows. So Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals audience and Gordon Ramsey's cooking show (not sure what's it called, need to look) audience.

Methodology wise:
1. Find similar instruction videos (e.g. Jamie Oliver how to cook apple pie, Gordon Ramsey how to cook apple pie) - this limit's the amount of extraneous/open variables.
2. Take a snippet of around 1-2 minutes from these videos.
3. Transcribe around 3 or 4 of these so I'll have around 8ish minutes worth of speaking.
4. Analyse and write up

After a little break then speaking to my english teacher on results day, I've decided not to continue with the chef idea.

Instead I'm going to look at language change in The Times newspaper