Linguistic Field Studies – LING 650

Course Description

This course analyzes linguistic data for the purpose of research by incorporating qualitative and/or quantitative methods.

Rationale

In this course, the student will learn how to conduct a linguistics research project. The student will learn how to design a research study, how to choose methods that address his/her research question, and how to analyze the results. Furthermore, the student will learn technical skills that will allow him/her to complete a research project.

Course Assignment

Textbook readings, lecture presentations, and software tutorials

Course Requirements Checklist

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Speech Recording Assignment

The student will collect speech data to practice setting up a recording session, thinking about ethical concerns in data collection, and to reflect on how to conduct a full-scale research project. Designing a research project and collecting data are the first (and necessary) steps in linguistics research. The student will practice these skills in this assignment and reflect on challenges experienced through the exercise.

Elan Assignment

The purpose of this assignment is to practice transcribing speech using the Elan software. The student will use Elan to practice basic transcription skills. Specifically, the student will practice creating a project in Elan and transcribing sentences with several tiers. This assignment will help the student practice technical skills that he/she may use for his/her final project and research beyond this class.

Praat Assignment

The students will use transcribed Elan files to create a Praat textgrid, which will be then used to analyze speech sounds. Praat is a very popular software that linguists use to do phonetic and phonological analysis. The purpose of this assignment is to introduce the student to the basic functions of Praat. These technical skills can be used for the student's final project and linguistic research outside of this class.

Data Visualization Assignment

The student will practice different data visualization for vowel durations. The student will use the vowel segmentations from the Praat assignment. Data visualization is an important tool not only for linguistics but research in general. Creating meaningful visualizations will help the student to see patterns, or lack thereof, in the data, which can then be used to run statistics or other analytical methods. Visualizations are also a powerful tool for communicating findings to others. It can often be more informative to observe a graphical representation of data then to read about someone else’s finding. These skills will help the student with his/her own research projects and can be used outside of an academic setting.

Project Proposal Assignment

Through the Final Project, the student will have an opportunity to work with real language data while practicing the data analysis procedures learned throughout the course. The Proposal is an opportunity to scaffold the student's work to conduct the final research project. The proposal is primarily concerned with creating a research design. The student will explore the literature on the topic areas of his/her choosing. Finally, the student will use the proposal in conjunction with instructor feedback to complete the final research project.

Literature Review Assignment

Literature reviews and background readings are of the utmost importance to linguistics research. It is vital to understand the current debates, perspectives, or findings of the selected topic in order to successfully contribute to the field. Research communities are much stronger when
they share information and when they thoroughly investigate what research has already been done on a topic before they begin their own research. The student will read and write reviews of 3 articles that relate to the topic he/she has selected for the Final Project. The student will synthesize the major points of the readings and determine how the research might fill a gap or support claims that have previously been made.

Methodology Assignment

Having sound methodology is not only important for academic or practical purposes, but it is also important to the broader field of linguistics and to the speakers of language communities. Interpretation of results hinges on the reliability of the methods used to collect data. Data collection and analysis are integral to all linguistics research projects. After collecting data for the Final Project, the student will write about how data was collected, what choices were made in designing the data collection, and what choices were made when designing the data analysis. 

Final Project Assignment

This Final Project is designed to emulate a research project for a journal. The student will combine the data collection, analysis, and writing composed throughout the course and organize the information into 6 sections: Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References.