Ling 410/510: Lang & Gender (Fall 2009)

Mini Experiment #1 – Lang and Gender attitudes

 

You need to conduct a small survey of what people believe about language and gender to access what stereotypes are still alive today.  You should survey 20 people (10 women and 10 men) per group, and include relevant social information if available.  You can survey people you know, but be sure to ask a few strangers as well.  It should take less than 3 minutes per person.  Be sure to write down what they say.  Your assignment should include a summary of your findings (see below for write-up guides), including detailed descriptions of your subjects.  Discuss if people agree or not about whether men and women speak differently.  Feel free to use whatever methodology you think is necessary.  This shouldn’t be more than 5 pages double-spaced. 

 

Here is the information you need to collect for each person:

 

Here are some questions you need to ask (could modify them or include more):

•                    Do you think men and women speak differently? (If yes) how so or why not?

 

•                    In general, would you say you prefer the way women talk, or the way men talk?  Why?

 

•                    In general, do you think men or women speak more correctly? Examples

 

 

Mini Experiment #2 – Lang and Gender attitudes

 

You have a couple options.  One is to conduct a survey similar to ME1 and while you write down answers to your questions, count the hedges used by each speaker.  You should survey 20 people (10 women and 10 men) per group, and include relevant social information if available.  You can survey people you know, but be sure to ask a few strangers as well.  It should take less than 3 minutes per person.  Be sure to write down what they say as well as tally their hedges.  Your assignment should include a summary of your findings (see below for write-up guides), including detailed descriptions of your subjects.  Discuss if there seems to be a correlation of some social factors with hedge use (including which hedges people use or if you notice a different function that some hedges have).  Feel free to use whatever methodology you think is necessary.  This shouldn’t be more than 5 pages double-spaced. 

 

Here is the information you need to collect for each person:

 

Here are the questions to ask (could modify them or include more):

•                    Do you think men and women speak differently? (If yes) how so or why not?

 

•                    In general, would you say you prefer the way women talk, or the way men talk?  Why?

 

•                    In general, do you think men or women speak more correctly? Examples

 

Be sure to include numbers in your write up (how many of each hedge each speaker used in a final table showing all of the data).  Use %s in your analysis. 

 

OOOORRRR

 

You could conduct a survey similar to ME1 but instead of gender, focus on sexual orientation.  The same requirements about subjects apply, but try to identify the sexual orientation of your survey takers if possible (if not, you can guess but state that you are guessing). 

 

Here are the questions to ask (could modify them or include more):

•                    Do you think gay men and lesbian women speak differently from heterosexual men and women? (If yes) how so or why not?

 

•                    Do you like the way gay men/lesbian women talk?

 

 

Mini Experiment write-up guidelines

 

There should be clear sections:

 

1.) An Intro section that discusses the topic that you investigate.  Include the questions you ask in the survey and a brief background info connecting it to our readings – the literature.

 

2.) Methodology and Subjects – includes info about interviewer (you), who you interviewed and where you interviewed people.  Refer to Table 1 that you create – Participants (and demographic info)

 

3.) Data and Analysis – This is where you present your data.  Table 2 should be answers to questions.  Please put info from table into prose.  Should include percentages of how many said yes/no and if demographic/social info is relevant (how many women said yes to question 1, for example).  Here you just present the data and numbers – no discussion of what it means.  Include charts if they make the data more understandable, but whenever you have a chart, you must refer to it in the text and you must reiterate in words what the chart is saying.

 

4.) Results and Conclusions – This is where you discuss what the above data means (if anything).  Summarize the findings, and include your take (your opinion) on these findings.  Also include any other relevant info about your preconceived notions, etc.

 

Other notes:

Do not use real names!

Be sure to make 2 tables and call them and refer to them as Table 1 and Table 2 in the text.  You can put the tables at the end or embed in the sections after where you refer to them.  Also be sure to label your tables as such.

 

The analysis section should just present the numbers and what the data are, whereas the discussion should be the interpretation of these numbers.  It’s a little awkward to separate, but pretend the analysis section that you are a non-bias reporter (just the facts), and then for the discussion, you are now an editorial writer and what you think the data mean. 

 

Feel free to use these headings and organize the write-up in this manner.  It should be clear and organized.  Basically, include the following info:

The questions I am asking and why I am asking them.

Who I asked the questions to (or to whom I asked the questions for you prescriptivists!)

What they said and who said what

What it all means in your opinion