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A2 English Language Investigation Coursework

I am struggling with this SO much....

I was wondering if I could ask someone a HUGE favour. If there are any people who have already done the coursework would they be able to tell me exactly what I need to write about, or even better send theirs to me so that I can see some examples?? It's just that I literally have no information as to what we have to include, not even what sections we need. The deadline is so soon... and I don't even know where to start.

I'm looking at the speech and communication of two children. How am I supposed to analyse that? Am I literally supposed to write what they can say? And how they communicate what they want? Because that's simple... do I need to include any theory? Not that I have any idea what theory I would include....

Even if anyone could point me in the direction of any websites that may help me, especially if there are websites with example courseworks. We haven't seen any examples at all, and seeing coursework that others have done always helps me.

I know it may be a bit cheeky to ask this, but I'm getting desperate!

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I would strongly suggest you speak to your tutor(s) if possible because there is no way you can guess at this coursework and if you can it will have to be a VERY good blag.

Seeing other people's finished copies can often be very helpful but I have a feeling it won't really help in this case because the A2 English Language coursework really is an individual investigation so no two investigations will be consistent or relevant. Even looking at something like style of writing or layout on someone else's work won't help because it has to be in your style.

You sound as though you have chosen a linguistic area to study (the language of two children) but you need to have detailed ideas of what you are going to study about the language of children: is it the way they interact with each other? Is it the fluidity of their speech? What is it exactly?

You also need to include specific details of what you hope to achieve, what you expect to find and how you are going to study them/what methods you are going to use. So yes you do need to include your theory and primarily a hypothesis * and no, no one can tell you exactly what you need to write about because really you are the only person who will know. Only you can answer these questions and if you don't know the answers then looking at finished pieces still might not help. Again I would recommend talking to a teacher or a trusted tutor who might be able to help explain things better.

* Your entire coursework revolves around your hypothesis

I hope this has given you some idea of what the coursework might require. I know it is very difficult and stressful, especially if you don't know what to do so if you need more details please feel free to message me.

Best of luck!
Reply 2
Hi,

We were told that we had to include:

- Introduction-
-say why you were interested in this topic area
- how you gathered your data
- Any limitations of your study (e.g. only two children- not representative, transcripts not reliable, etc)
- Any background research. Look at studies about children's speech. David Crystal's book may be useful, else you could google it and see what you come up with. Ideally make this specific to WHAT you are investigating. You should try to refer to these studies through your investigation as you analyse your data.
- How do you intend you analyse your data? We split our work into four sub-questions. E.G. One on gramma, lexis, etc. An example may be: how does the lexis of these two children differ?-if you were looking into the differences? My study was on the gender differences in two children's language, which was very interesting. I really enjoyed it- I hope you can too. :-)

-Do each sub question seperately. Analyse it how you like. Use graphs, tables, even mind maps. Try to answer the question really. Make comparisons, explore similarities... perhaps suggests reasons for these (using your research if you can). This is the main body of your study.

- Conclusion.
-What did you find out?
-Were there any problems/ difficultues and how did you overcome these?
- What are limitations? What would you do differently? How could you expand your research?

I hope this helps. It may not be all you need to include but I hope it's a start. Feel free to PM me if you get stuck. :smile: good luck! xxx
Reply 3
Thank you so much to both of you. You have both helped. I didn't even realise I had to have a hypothesis. I thought I might but that goes to show how little I knew! So thanks both of you, hopefully I can get a good draft together with that and then get help from my tutor when I go back to college. Thanks. xxx
Reply 4
Lulu87
Thank you so much to both of you. You have both helped. I didn't even realise I had to have a hypothesis. I thought I might but that goes to show how little I knew! So thanks both of you, hopefully I can get a good draft together with that and then get help from my tutor when I go back to college. Thanks. xxx


Heya,

You don't necessarily have to have a hypothesis. I know I didn't and got an A so it can't be a necessity. I approached mine open-mindedly, which our teacher advised. If you have got one make sure you look at both sides of the argument, and sound passionate about your work! hehe! Apparently the examiners love that! :biggrin:

I was the bit TOO passionate one who did way too much and had to spend AGES cutting it down to the word limit! lol. :rolleyes:

Good luck! If I can be of any more help feel free to PM me. xxx :smile:
Reply 5
It took me ages to do mine - finally got a draft in. The phrases had to sound right, which made it even harder. I think that you must choose your frameworks on what is most appropriate and then your coursework will flow better. Also, think about starting with the basics and then add the more complicated stuff in later; this will help you to plan and organise your work. For child language acquisition, you could consider theorists' thoughts, such as Chomsky. Look for irregularities too - it is a key thing for child lang. acq. because this is where you can really tell that they are still learning. For example, I jumped is correct with the '-ed', however they may say I thinked; as they would not know this irregular verb. But they have recognised the regular '-ed' past tense ending; irregularities such as this are the key for A grades as your a applying the theory. PM me for anything else.
Reply 6
I feel for you, I really do.
At least you have a pretty good idea.
I thought I had 2 pretty good ideas, and all the guys on here helped me research it and stuff.
Then the teachers decided differently.

Now, 2 weeks later, I still don't have an idea.
Failure, anyone? Yep, just me then!!

xxx
Reply 7
dans
It took me ages to do mine - finally got a draft in. The phrases had to sound right, which made it even harder. I think that you must choose your frameworks on what is most appropriate and then your coursework will flow better. Also, think about starting with the basics and then add the more complicated stuff in later; this will help you to plan and organise your work. For child language acquisition, you could consider theorists' thoughts, such as Chomsky. Look for irregularities too - it is a key thing for child lang. acq. because this is where you can really tell that they are still learning. For example, I jumped is correct with the '-ed', however they may say I thinked; as they would not know this irregular verb. But they have recognised the regular '-ed' past tense ending; irregularities such as this are the key for A grades as your a applying the theory. PM me for anything else.

hi im also struggling with my language investigation coursework.
i thought about doing something like comparing the diffences in text and pictures used in fiction books for different ages. maybe starting from childrens books to about books for teenages or adults. do u thing this is a good topic to focus on.
fanxx
Reply 8
I thnk that that is a very good idea.I would only have one text for each age group though, and also scrap the pictures bit of it.
Reply 9
I'm comparing Instant Messeging technologies against traditional communication methods and the effects on language

any suggestions what I need to include?
vaughn_
I'm comparing Instant Messeging technologies against traditional communication methods and the effects on language

any suggestions what I need to include?


You would probably need to include theories on discourse (people writing how they would speak (eye-dialect)), language change stuff-this would be things like narrowing, broadening, slang taboo language. Probably looking at variables such as age and gender. Can't think of anything else right now tho.
If you don't have a hypothesis yet, you could try starting to analyse your data and see what you come up with. It's what I'm intending to do!
Try looking for this book:

A2 English Language for AQA B (Norman and Watkiss)

This was my Bible when I did the coursework - I defo recommend it
Reply 13
Just got my coursework grade and it was an A! So, I'd say try not to do anything to complicated. You can do a simple topic eg newspaper comparisons or child language, and can still get top marks.

Good luck xx
Reply 14
I got a high A and I did the comparison between scientific language for children and that for A level students. Really really easy; sometimes the easy stuff can be the best as you can go into a lot of detail with it!
Reply 15
I agree dans.

I didn't have a clear concise hypothesis either. More a jumbled up list of the common conventions of tabloids/broadsheets and what I expected to see, ie broadsheet longer words etc.
Reply 16
How do you go about collecting the data?
Reply 17
What is your title? Subject?
I got a B for my A2 c/w - a few marks off an A. I chose an area which really interests me, so I compared two cricket writers in The Times. I did a thorough textual analysis using the key frameworks...I also mentioned phrases and syntax as this can let you enter the higher marks. Just refer back to last year's frameworks - grammar/lexis/semantics/pragmatics/phonology/graphology. If you are a keen textual nut, then this is definitely for you. All you have to do is pick a text or two from each writer, compare them, show some graphic descriptions, and use this to back up how they are so different. I also stated why this might be, given The Times is a broadsheet and must provide a range of analysis, from reports about the actual cricket match and reports on wider issues. I found linking politics, history and socio-culture easy, as The Times is strictly a conservative paper.

Basically, pick an area that you absolutely love, and it should be easy. If all else fails and you're really stuck, stick to child acquisition and use plenty of theory, frameworks, and back the two up against each other...hope this helps!
Reply 19
I got a high A and I did the comparison between scientific language for children and that for A level students. Really really easy; sometimes the easy stuff can be the best as you can go into a lot of detail with it!
language in the science textbooks of children compared to that of a level? thats quite good. what did you analyse? and what did you find out?