During week 5, the group went back to the drawing board in terms of finding a more particular focus for our research project. First and foremost, upon receiving Alison's feedback, the group had the task of drastically narrowing down our originally vague 'focus' for the project.
What questions will your research answer?
What questions will your research answer?
- To what extent does the social status of the speaker and/or receiver affect the way in which “taboo” language is perceived?
- What role does gender have in the way in which taboo language is perceived?
- To what extent do the opinions of people on what is considered to be “taboo” language differ and why?
In order to achieve this, we have decided to base most of our analysis on both the social status and gender of the speaker and/or receiver, within context. The 'context' being 4 separate 'case studies', all of which have been well-documented in the media recently:
1) The court case involving alleged offensive and/or racist language used by Chelsea FC captain John Terry towards QPR defender and fellow England colleague Anton Ferdinand.
2 & 3) The song '212' by Azealia Banks and, in particular, it's lyrical content and the way in which the song was received by the general public. This song will then be compared and contrasted with 'Niggaz In Paris' by Jay-Z and Kanye West which peaked at #10 in the UK Singles Chart.
4) Andrew Mitchell's alleged use of the term "plebs" and/or other offensive language towards police officers in an incident outside the Houses Of Parliament.
The group made a considered effort to find the most appropriate, engaging case studies from which to collect data for our research project. By confining the case studies to the topics of sport, music and politics respectively, we as a group are confident that we have taken the right steps to provide a solid, interesting basis on which to design our questionnaire.
Another interesting factor that will be integrated into our analysis is the use of metalinguistic language when discussing the case studies, i.e. how each individual case is perceived and how they are written/spoken about in the media, newspapers, etc.
During week 5, each member of their own group had their own delegated responsibilities in terms of research for separate case studies. There has been a unanimous agreement in terms of the effectiveness of sharing the workload in this manner and it is something we are keen to continue with.
The blog will be updated further during the week.
The blog will be updated further during the week.
Glad to see you're still working hard and evidently making progress, so thanks for the update as requested. You can come along in an office hour if you want to see me - last week's session was half 'technical' and half research-focused, but it doesn't matter now.
ReplyDeleteI think the tighter focus on the three specifics you've identified is a good development. Be careful, though, about assuming that any one factor, such as gender or 'social status' (how defined?), will always be salient in the same way: you'd need a much bigger set of examples before you could draw reliable conclusions. Or have I misunderstood your questions? Because they're in the passive, it's not clear who's doing what: are you hoping (as I thought) to compare the social status of the speakers or to compare reactions to the speech among people you survey?
You could simplify your aims even further by seeking people's reactions to the language used in these different incidents and then seeing what patterns, if any, emerge. Anyway, keep me updated and good luck with the next phase.