For this assignment, you must: Submit a 3,500-word analysis that is 1.5 or double-spaced of the topic you have chosen related to language and gender/sexuality.
This essay should contain the following subsections (choose appropriate titles for each section as well as a title for your assignment).
• A brief introduction to the research project, your question and the data source/community of practice
• A review of relevant prior literature
• A discussion of your methodology, methods, the data (including the collection process, if relevant) and ethical issues
• An analysis of the data (what patterns did you find, if any?)
• A discussion of the implications of your findings
• A conclusion (you may add your conclusions to your discussion, but think carefully about doing that)
• References (correctly formatted!) Your assignment should read like a shorter version of a research article, such as are published in journals that specialise in language and gender/sexuality research. The goal of the assignment is to provide you with experience in analysing complex data sets for relevant patterns; drawing inferences and conclusions from these patterns; and in presenting your findings in a clear, concise and wellsupported fashion. Please be aware of penalties for plagiarism, and follow advice provided in your course handbook on correct citations and references.
Your assignment will be assessed on meeting the overall learning outcomes for the module (appended at the end of the document), and I will do that in accordance to the following:
• The overall structure and clarity of argument o (Is the essay well-structured and clear?) o (Does the essay follow the assessment brief?) o (Is the argument clearly articulated?) o (Are the references appropriate?)
• The quality of the analysis o (Is the analysis appropriate?) o (Are the findings reasonable?) o (Is the discussion linked to prior research?) § (That is justified, grounded in, or related to the literature articulated in the field?)
• Writing and presentation style o (Is the essay coherent?) o (Is the writing at the level necessary for academic work?) o (Are the citations and references done correctly and consistently?) o (Is the information presented in an accessible and systematic format?) The Appendix: Data coding/collection when you submit your assessment, you will also submit an appendix that shows your coding process. This is important because it shows how you approached your data in order to find the complex patterns within it.
Here is some information about what this entails.
1) Select a topic that has been linked to gender/sexuality and language (or one that has been tied to gender/sexuality that you want to investigate to discover patterns in language)
2) Depending on the topic that you have selected and how you plan on investigating it, you will: i. Collect a sample of English (in order to collect tokens of the relevant variable that is related to your topic). A sample can be publicly available spoken discourse (a recording of an interview, a radio programme, media broadcasts, etc.), written discourse (novel/s, online comments, a/synchronous online interaction, letters, etc.), or multimodal (magazines, some social media communication, etc.). Whatever data you choose – your data source must be appropriate – you must get approval for your research plan from me. (More on your research plan in that section below!) ii. Code your collected sample for the variable of interest of topic as well as gender/sexuality in preparation for subsequent analysis, also taking into account relevant social (e.g., gender, sexuality, education, social class, ethnicity, etc.), stylistic (e.g., topic, audience, genre, in/formality, distance, etc.) and linguistic (e.g., tense, syntactic environment, person, etc.) factors that may influence the presence of your variable or how your topic is being discussed.
“Coding” means the translation of a spoken or written text into an analysable format. Coding requires you to think about the different things that could affect the realisation of your variable and then to organise your data in a way that will allow you to see patterns that can be linked of grounded in relevant literature. For example, let’s say you’re interested in how Youtube beauty influencers who identify as non-binary use metaphors in their product review videos. You will need to think about the various social and stylistic factors that could influence how metaphors are used in product reviews and the structure and grammar used to discuss it. You will also need to think about your data sample (What are the ethics involved? Is it better to achieve a sample of multiple influencers or many videos from the same influencer?). Once you have selected your sample, and have compiled a list of the factors (social, stylistic, and linguistic) that you think could have an effect on the realisation of your topic, you will code your data for instances that it manifests, how it is discussed (the factors), the responses the topic generates (which themselves should be coded), and so on. You’ll then find after you code the data that new factors that you didn’t think of are present in your data, so you’ll need to go back and re-code the data. You should do this a few times. Note that this is a hypothetical example and you will need to determine your topic and which kinds of factors are important to consider for your variable. What you submit for coding: • In the same file (as an appendix): 1) Your coded data (spreadsheet or coded transcript) showing all instances the variable (and tokens if appropriate) and factors considered 2) A legend or key that explains your codes and factors considered
Learning outcomes
1. A critical understanding of theoretical and analytical frameworks for analysing language, gender, and sexuality
2. An ability to apply and evaluate theoretical and analytical frameworks in the study of language as it relates to gender and/or sexuality
3. In-depth knowledge of how language, gender, and sexuality are linked to broader issues of social inequality and other identities and experiences
4. Mastery over the difference between myths and stereotypes about language and gender and/or sexuality and scholarly research findings.