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A2 English Language Investigation Coursework

What Aimai said is more or less exactly the same as the advice we were given for structuring the responses :biggrin:

I'm doing how children's literature has changed over time, so I know how you feel T__T the worst thing about mine seems to be deciphering bad photocopies and silly transcriptions from the 19th century, but ah well :') Good luck with your work x

Reply 21

flairy.

I'm thinking of basing my coursework on the speech of my little brother (4 years old) but not too sure what to look into specifically. I was thinking of transcribing conversations with him and perhaps him and other children (I know a couple of people with young children) and maybe looking at the errors in children's speech. Do you think that would perhaps not be enough or does it sound OK? Thank you :smile:

Reply 22

merkatron

2

Original post by flairy.

I'm thinking of basing my coursework on the speech of my little brother (4 years old) but not too sure what to look into specifically. I was thinking of transcribing conversations with him and perhaps him and other children (I know a couple of people with young children) and maybe looking at the errors in children's speech. Do you think that would perhaps not be enough or does it sound OK? Thank you :smile:

Given that it's probably too late to do a longitudinal study (tracking his language use over time), you could perhaps try an apparent time study which uses data from your brother and two other children (one of 3 and one of 5 maybe?). You cold then choose a couple of frameworks/methods - lexis, semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, pragmatics...take your pick - and look at differences between them.

There's masses of stuff to look at in language development and a lot of support in both the A2 AQA B book and the AQA A AS book (plus Little Evie on Teachit and Mathilda Speaking from EMC).

I don't think you can go too far wrong with child language really, just so long as you try your best to close down extra-linguistic variables: like, make sure if you do get kids of 3,4 & 5 they're roughly same social class, regional background, preferably same gender etc.

Reply 23

Lantulana

Original post by Shuv

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

^^^
This, pretty much - it is a massive help. Although it's not too good with my own investigation on how language is used differently in video game reviews that are aimed towards male or female audiences; but still useful otherwise :biggrin:

Reply 24

Lantulana

If it's the data you're having issues getting, you could always watch a show like Supernanny (or a similar documentary-type thing) and do a corpus analasys on that. I'm doing a corpus analasys on game reviews myself, it's a little easier than getting primary data, but still a slog XD

Reply 25

merkatron

2

Original post by Lantulana

If it's the data you're having issues getting, you could always watch a show like Supernanny (or a similar documentary-type thing) and do a corpus analasys on that. I'm doing a corpus analasys on game reviews myself, it's a little easier than getting primary data, but still a slog XD

I don't know if it's any use to you, but the Language of War by Steve Thorne has got some stuff about video game advertising (not reviews) in it and some interesting stuff on analysis of language used to represent conflict. Could give you some pointers if you need them.

Reply 26

flairy.

Original post by merkatron

Given that it's probably too late to do a longitudinal study (tracking his language use over time), you could perhaps try an apparent time study which uses data from your brother and two other children (one of 3 and one of 5 maybe?). You cold then choose a couple of frameworks/methods - lexis, semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, pragmatics...take your pick - and look at differences between them.

There's masses of stuff to look at in language development and a lot of support in both the A2 AQA B book and the AQA A AS book (plus Little Evie on Teachit and Mathilda Speaking from EMC).

I don't think you can go too far wrong with child language really, just so long as you try your best to close down extra-linguistic variables: like, make sure if you do get kids of 3,4 & 5 they're roughly same social class, regional background, preferably same gender etc.

I wish I had thought about this earlier since the longitudinal study would have been fab! I might stick with this idea, like you said, you can't go wrong with child language! I just want something to make it a little different - this idea has probably been done to death. Thanks for replying :smile:

Reply 27

GT5_Jay

Original post by dans

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!

hey!
thats a good idea
i was thinking a long comparing the chemistry books for GCSE as compared to a level. what kind of things did you find? i mean, is there a lot to talk about? if so, wht could you talk about?

Reply 28

chocoholic786

Hey sorry for interrupting the thread but I was wondering if I could get some help too I'm confused on what to do..I wanted to do something on like english as a second language but that's too broad and I don't know what to research in specific oh and I'm not too keen on doing gender things so so maybe something like language change? I really don't know please help and thank you.. :smile:

Reply 29

merkatron

2

Original post by chocoholic786

Hey sorry for interrupting the thread but I was wondering if I could get some help too I'm confused on what to do..I wanted to do something on like english as a second language but that's too broad and I don't know what to research in specific oh and I'm not too keen on doing gender things so so maybe something like language change? I really don't know please help and thank you.. :smile:

Why not narrow down the E2L one to focus on speakers of a specific language. I've seen some excellent projects like that. One of my students did a project on Cristiano Ronaldo (spit) and his changing English across three years of interviews. Another did one on her parents' and aunts' use of Jamaican patois.

If you narrow it down to a couple of frameworks and can get access to decent data they're good projects. Change is a massive topic, so pin it down to something very precise.

Reply 30

chocoholic786

Original post by merkatron

Why not narrow down the E2L one to focus on speakers of a specific language. I've seen some excellent projects like that. One of my students did a project on Cristiano Ronaldo (spit) and his changing English across three years of interviews. Another did one on her parents' and aunts' use of Jamaican patois.

If you narrow it down to a couple of frameworks and can get access to decent data they're good projects. Change is a massive topic, so pin it down to something very precise.

oh thank youu hmm i'm going to try finding someone like that to do it on once again thanks for the idea :smile:

Reply 31

keepinorder

Original post by merkatron

Why not narrow down the E2L one to focus on speakers of a specific language. I've seen some excellent projects like that. One of my students did a project on Cristiano Ronaldo (spit) and his changing English across three years of interviews. Another did one on her parents' and aunts' use of Jamaican patois.

If you narrow it down to a couple of frameworks and can get access to decent data they're good projects. Change is a massive topic, so pin it down to something very precise.

Hello, i'm planning on doing a comparison of newspaper articles on the deaths of politicians, however i am finding it difficult to do my introduction and am not too sure about my hypothesis. I am also finding it difficult to do my data methodology as i am not sure what to write other than that i got it from a newspaper in the 1940s and one from 2011. Also i would be grateful if you could perhaps give me some ideas on theorists that i can use to support my investigation. Thank you! keepinorder

Reply 32

AndSoWeLaughed

Original post by chocoholic786

Hey sorry for interrupting the thread but I was wondering if I could get some help too I'm confused on what to do..I wanted to do something on like english as a second language but that's too broad and I don't know what to research in specific oh and I'm not too keen on doing gender things so so maybe something like language change? I really don't know please help and thank you.. :smile:

Hello!

I am also doing ESL or EFL. I thought I could do Second Language Acquisition. I talked to my teacher about it and I came up with these statements or questions:

How language differe between social environment and academic environment.
English is a difficult language to learn because; grammar; pronunciation (here you can do phonology) ;tenses
The more languages you know the easier ore more difficult English becomes to learn.
How sland differes between international & British - this one will relate to language change as well as making a great Media text.

To include Child Language Acq. you can use younger subjects and how they learn english, that way you can get some theorists ideas and have quite a lot to analyse. Apparently, if you record a sister or brother, you cannot also be in the recording. My teacher also said, if they slip into their mother language (was going to say tongue but was really weird in this sentence!) say why they did it, or that could be investigated.

To include AS materials
Gender: english slang between Boys and Girls - shown that boys use more, and more taboo language, but does this change with another language background? Also, who learns the language faster?
Power: english and foriegn language between pupil and teacher. I found that though the teacher wants to be in control if the pupils slip into their own they can speak about him, and disrupt the class. This could be quite good if analysed well.
Technology - English in texts, emails - is it greater than speech? do they try harder or less to correct their english?

I hope this helps!! I think I am going to do the first question :smile:

Because I can include power and gender if needs be (if it gets boring :wink:

)

Reply 33

Leighash

Hi,
I am really struggling with ideas for my investigation and my proposal has to be in by Wednesday, eeek! I've had a couple of ideas so far;
- Comparing Bridget Jones' Diary to Pride & Prejudice and looking at the similarities and differences of how they use language to express social (and gender) prejudice
- Comparing the language of Newsround to that used on the BBC News
but I'm not really sure if there will be much to talk about. Has anyone got any thoughts on these or any other ideas I could look into? I'm completely stuck! :frown:

Reply 34

Floalley

2

I did an analysis of offensive gender descriptive words, including semantics, phonology and word origin. Why? I don't know why either.Collecting data was bloody difficult.

Reply 35

angel_25

Hello im seriously confused about what to do with my A2 investigation coursework, I was thinking about doing my coursework based on a childs conversation skills or a rare one such as 'Does children who's english is not their first language learn language slower' ???' HELP ME SOMEONEE

o god help me

Hiya!!
I'm a bit stuck on the limitations and was wondering what sort of limitations would this include?
xx

Reply 38

sarahelizabth

I've got absolutely no idea what to do! What has everyone else done?

Reply 39

Untold Tales

I've got the investigation bit down, I think (I'm studying how different teachers of different subjects use power effectively in a year 13 classroom and how the students react to this). I'm having really big issues with the media text that goes with. How am I supposed to link this to something in the real world? Any ideas?

UT

A2 English Language Investigation Coursework

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