Final Paper (30%)

Due by 10 p.m. Wednesday, December 10 (no exceptions!)

For your final paper, you will expand one of your quantitative analysis assignments into a full research paper. You will be drawing on either your Japanese-American interview assignment or your Attention paid to speech assignment.

Your paper will be a research paper on the quantitative analysis of a dialect variable. We encourage you to write your paper on the variable you chose to investigate for one of the two analysis assignments.

If you choose to expand your Japanese-American interview assignment, we will ask you to complete a slightly larger and more thorough analysis of your variable using the interview data from Grace and Sherman. If you choose to expand your Attention to Speech assignment, we will ask you to either complete a longer and more thorough analysis of your variable, or you will have the option to draw data from a second interview that one of your classmates conducted, as a point of inter-speaker comparison.

Once you have chosen which assignment you'd like to expand, we'll ask you to set up a meeting with one of us to discuss your final paper. Send an e-mail to Annette and Janneke at the course e-mail address to set up a meeting, and please specify your variable in your e-mail. As mentioned, we encourage you to continue with a variable you have chosen if you see interesting patterns, but you may choose to change variables if you wish. Please e-mail us and set up your meeting by Friday, November 21 at 5 p.m., so you will have plenty of time to complete your paper with our comments and guidance.

As this is a research paper, we expect to see the following sections:

  1. Introduction with Background Research
  2. Methods
  3. Results
  4. Discussion of Results and Conclusion
More information on what we expect from each of these sections is provided below.

In this paper, you will present your quantitative analysis, situating it with clear and organized background research in the following areas:

  1. A brief introduction of relevant theoretical concepts related to dialects that will apply to your analysis and discussion
  2. Previous research about the dialects that are relevant to your investigation
  3. Relevant information about the speakers and/or community from which you are using data
  4. Relevant previous investigations of your variable

As always, your background should be the result of research from academic sources, all of which should be cited appropriately. Speculation or unsubstantiated claims are unacceptable in a research paper.

You will then clearly present the data you used and the details of your method of analysis, explaining and justifying your choices. Then present your results. As in your assignments, we'd like to see table(s) and figure(s). Your table should include raw numbers as well as proportions.

You should then interpret and discuss your results in light of the background research that you have conducted and written about regarding your variable, the speakers/community, and relevant aspects of dialect studies that we have covered in class. Again, all of your claims should be clearly backed up by research, concepts we have covered in class, and your quantitative findings. Clearly connect your own findings to previous work in discussing your interpretation of the results.

This paper should be approximately 6 pages single-spaced including tables/figures (12 double-spaced). However, the number of pages you write is not as important to us as thorough background research, clear and organized presentation of your data, and thoughtful and reasonable discussion of your results that illustrates an understanding of class concepts. Email your completed write-up as a PDF or DOC attachment to the course e-mail address linguist159-aut1415-staff@lists.stanford.edu no later than 10 p.m. on December 10th. We cannot accept late final papers.

We strongly encourage you to contact us throughout your research, analysis and writing process with any questions you may have. In addition to the required initial meeting, we are happy to meet with you by appointment before the deadline as well to discuss any challenges you come up against, or if you have questions about drafts. You may find it useful to draw upon our comments on your assignments throughout the quarter.