Attention Paid to Speech Assignment (15%)

Part 1: Recordings (5%) Due in class Tuesday, November 11

Part 2: Write-up (10%) Due by the beginning of class Tuesday, November 18

This assignment explores how speakers vary their speech patterns in different production contexts. Specifically, we will investigate the extent to which altering levels of "attention paid to speech" (cf. Labov 1966) may factor in to a speaker's production of his/her dialect features. This is one way in which linguists have theorized the concept of style and how it emerges in variation. As dialectologists, we always need to consider potential stylistic variation in our descriptions of dialects. Here, you will do so with one native California speaker.

Part 1: Recordings (due 11/11, in class)

You will need to make one recording, with three parts, with a native California speaker. This recording will be comprised of: 1) a sociolinguistic interview, 2) a reading passage, and 3) a word list.

Interviewee and context: You will need to find one native Californian (i.e., someone who has not lived in another state) to interview. This person should be 18 or older and should also be a native speaker of English, though it doesn't matter if they speak other languages as well. Tell them this will take about an hour of their time. Find a quiet place to meet with your interviewee. A place with minimal background noise (e.g., fans, talking, music) is best, where you will not be interrupted.

Consent and demographic information: Before you start recording, you must have your interviewee's consent. Read over the consent form with your interviewee so they are aware that this recording will be used for research purposes. After they have signed the consent form (and initialed where appropriate on the back side), they should then fill out the Demographic Questionnaire. We will distribute all required forms to you in class on Tuesday, November 4. If you lose yours before your interview, you can re-print the consent form and the demographic form here.

Recording equipment: For our purposes, the recording capabilities of most smart phones and computers will suffice (assuming there is little to no background noise). Make sure you are familiar with your device's recording functionality before the interview (test everything out first!). Make sure you also know how to export recordings from your device in WAV format. If you'd like to use good quality sound recording software that easily saves files as WAVs, you can download Audacity here and record through your computer.

Sociolinguistic interview: Spend the first forty-five minutes conducting a conversational interview. The best sociolinguistic interviews are not explicitly structured, but proceed naturally with the interviewer mainly asking questions, and the interviewee doing most of the talking. The Grace/Sherman interviews are good examples of sociolinguistic interviews. If you're stuck as to what kinds of questions to ask, you can look at this document for ideas beforehand, but please do not bring pre-written questions to the interview.

Reading passage: After about forty-five minutes of conversation have elapsed, you can wrap up the sociolinguistic interview and proceed to the next task. Now you will record the reading passage. Provide your interviewee the reading passage and ask them to read it aloud. If you'd like a script of some sort for the instructions, you can say something like the following:

"Please read the following passage aloud at a comfortable pace and volume. Try to read as naturally as possible. Begin whenever you are ready."

Word list: After you have finished the reading passage, you have one more short task. Provide your interviewee the word list and ask them to read the words aloud one by one, starting at the left column (top to bottom) and then proceeding down the right column. If you'd like a script of some sort for the instructions, you can say something like the following:

"For the last part of our interview, I have a list of words for you to read out loud. There's no right or wrong way to say any of the words, we just want to know how you say them. You can begin whenever you're ready, and you don't need to pause between words or anything, just read each word however you'd usually say it."

When you have finished your recordings, export your file from your device (WAV format) and save it on a flash drive. Bring your flash drive, along with the consent form and the demographic questionnaire to class, Tuesday 11/11.

Part 2: Write-Up (due 11/18)

For the write-up portion of the assignment, you will select a phonological variable in the speech of your interviewee to investigate in detail. You will perform a quantitative analysis of your variable in all three of the production contexts.

Once you have chosen a variable, send an e-mail to Annette and Janneke at the course e-mail address, so that we can advise you about conducting your analysis on it.

To complete this part of the assignment, you will need to:

  1. Select your variable.
  2. Identify the variants (what are the different ways this variable can be realized?).
  3. Find tokens, or instances, of your variable in all three production contexts. When you e-mail us about which variable you'll be investigating, we will discuss with you how many tokens we think will be reasonable for you to find in the sociolinguistic interview. Note: For the sociolinguistic interview, you should exclude the first 15 minutes (900 seconds) of the interview in your analysis. For the reading passage and the word list, you should use all available tokens.
  4. For each token, decide which variant was used.
  5. Calculate the proportions for how often each variant of your variable is used by your speaker in each of the production contexts, and create a table showing your findings. Additionally, create a chart comparing the usage of the variable in the three production contexts.

In your write-up, you should explain in prose the above information (what is your variable? what are the possible variants? How many total tokens were you able to use?). Include your table of proportions, including both percentages and raw numbers, as well as your chart comparing the three contexts. Then explain in prose what your findings were, and briefly interpret (in one or two sentences) these findings with regard to whether they suggest your feature to be an indicator, marker, or stereotype and why.

This write-up should be 1.5 pages single-spaced (3 double-spaced). Email your completed write-up as a PDF or DOC attachment to the course e-mail address linguist159-aut1415-staff@lists.stanford.edu by the beginning of class, Tuesday November 18.