The assignment

In plain language: explain something about how a piece of talk works.

More exactly: analyze the communicative effects of some aspects of one or more linguistic performances, attending to at least two different levels of linguistic analysis.

"Analyze" means "explain on the basis of specific examples and general principles."

"Communicative effects" means "the (likely) effects on a real or hypothetical interlocutor or listener." This can be construed very broadly: the interpretation of the literal meaning; the perception of dialect; the relationship to social stereotypes or cultural norms; the generation of an emotional response; the control of turn-taking; or many other things.

"(Some aspects of) one or more linguistic performances" means (in the simplest case) a recording of a conversation, speech, reading or monologue. You can also compare two such recordings, or look at properties of a large set of such recordings (though this last is probably too ambitious for a project of this size). Songs are permitted -- but your analysis should be primarily linguistic, not musical. In principle, you can start with a written text (such as a transcript) rather than a recording, but a recording is better. You might also use a set of written texts for background analysis, with a more detailed analysis of a specific passage you look at in spoken form. (Note that "performance" doesn't mean "acting", it is just being used as a term to cover everything from ordinary conversation to a formal political speech.)

"Attending to at last two different levels of linguistic analysis" means that you should discuss two or more of the standard levels of linguistic analysis: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics. The two levels might be connected to a single communicative effect, for example if you looked at the use of pitch range and sentence structure in quoted dialogue; or the relationship of pronunciation and lexical choice to dialect perception; or the rhetorical use of timing and parallelism. However, you can also consider several linguistic aspects of a passage with respect to several different kinds of effect.

All in all, this is a very loose requirement. The main constraints are: deal with (at least one) specific spoken passage, and look in detail at the relations between linguistic form and communicative effect. There should be some sort of overall point: it's not enough (for example) to break a passage down into morphemes and also show its syntactic structure.

Homework assignments throughout the semester will be designed to lead you through some of the first stages of your project, as well as giving you skills that you will need to do the analyses. In particular, we will make many suitable audio passages available, as well as giving you some practice in creating and analyzing your own.

Q and A

Q: When is the project due?

A: On the last day of class, which is December 8.

Q: Can we do joint projects?

A: No, everyone should hand in an individual project report.

Q: Can you give some examples of plausible projects?

A:

1. The lecture notes on sociolinguistics describe some cases of systematic connections between social and interpersonal dimensions (like class, gender and formality) and linguistic dimensions (like usage of a stigmatized form of the English present progressive morpheme). Gamble Roger's dawg monologue consists largely of a baroque elaboration of such analogies focused around a single word. Explain and discuss.
2. Like many other orators, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. used parallelism effectively as a rhetorical device, both in the construction and in the delivery of speeches (see samples below). Explain and discuss.

Q: Does the linguistic performance have to be in English?

A: No. But it needs to be in some language that the instructor or one of the TAs knows well, or else the analysis needs to be compelling and very clearly explained.

Q: What should I actually hand in as my final project report?

A: We recommend an ordinary printed document, though you might choose to create a multimedia document (say in html). In the latter case, it will probably be easier for us if you can put it on line (e.g. in http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~yourname/foo.html). However, we would like to emphasize that your grade will mainly depend on the content of the project. An insightful analysis, cogently but plainly presented, will impress us more than a relatively content-free multimedia showcase. This is not to discourage you from enhancing your analysis with a creative presentation. In particular, if your analysis focuses on aspects of the sound, then we should have access to the sound in digital form.

Q: How long should my project report be?

A: The short (though not very helpful) answer is "long enough to make your point." Keep in mind that this project counts for 20% of your grade.

Q: How should I approach the project?

A: Start with a selection of material and a short but clear statement (for your own purposes) of the main point of the analysis. Do the detailed analysis before you start to write. A transcript is a good place to start, with bits of linguistic analysis keyed to pieces of it. In most cases, you should expect to spend more time doing the analysis than writing it up. You don't have to limit yourself to linguistic analysis -- an interesting discussion will almost certainly bring in non-linguistic facts and themes -- but the linguistic analysis has to be there.