Anth 201 Language, Culture, Power
Investigating Language Politics in Portland
Final Analysis Guidelines

Due:

  1. Thursday May 2 First draft/outline in class for peer review. (Has to include some new prose, e.g.,  at least the introduction paragraphs, or a description of the interaction or event).
  2. Monday, May 13, 7 pm, Final paper uploaded to Moodle; Research partners should submit separate final analyses of their joint work.

Length and format: 7-10 pages double-spaced, 1 inch margins all around, Word doc or pdf. See Final Paper Template for guidelines on paper structure.

Citation: Note that you are expected to use anthropological in-text citation for all papers in this class, e.g., (Cooper 2001, 189). See the AAA style guide online.

Upload: at least one audio or video file (per pair) to Ensemble Media Repository and Wordpress Media Exhibit Blog

  • Upload to the Ensemble Media Repository at least one (per pair) audio or video (at least 2 minutes long) of linguistic interactions from or related to fieldwork.
  • After you upload your pair's audio or video file to the Ensemble Media Repository, you should embed the file in a post on the course Wordpress Media Exhibit Blog, tagging it with relevant categories and tags from the lists, and including a clear description indicating the date and context, the relevant interlocutors and organizations, the location or spatial situation, and what is happening or at stake in the interaction (See Overview of Upload Process).

This is the culminating analysis of your research this semester. In it, you can draw on your previous writing (your field commentaries and the midterm preliminary analysis) to delve further and provide a more in-depth or richly contextualized analysis of some aspect of your field research that you recorded and/or observed at your chosen public meeting(s) or event(s). Your analysis must be an application of some of the key themes, terms, and theories about language, culture and power from our course readings. Be sure to define and contextualize key terms and discuss them at the beginning of the paper as you develop a thesis about what is going on in the interaction you chose. Be sure to use several direct quotes from your chosen author(s) to back up your claims about their approaches.

Your analysis should also lay out some of the most relevant larger contexts that help explain what participants are alluding to and evoking, as well as the potential consequences of the language politics you argue are in play. In this, you will want to draw on 3-4 credible outside sources (news articles, credible websites, the organizations' own materials). See the Course Research Guide.

Ask: how will your fieldwork data illustrate or challenge your chosen concepts and theories from course readings? Consider: if language is not a bounded, completely shared code or system of signs (e.g., Saussure), but an open and contested process of interpretation in particular social and cultural settings, how are the linguistic practices you observe linked to their settings for participants? How are they linked to relations of hierarchy and power, prestige or authority? What evidence can you cite to claim that? What particular linguistic and non-verbal signs are important in the situation you're analyzing and why? How are people using various signs to communicate and interpret implied or explicit stances?

Your analysis will include a short transcription of the relevant part of the interaction (anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes). For help with transcribing conventions, see the "Tips on Transcription Practices" handed out in class and online. Be sure to number your lines so that you can refer to those line numbers in your analysis. Your transcriptions must use the transcription diacritics in the handout. In your transcriptions, make sure not just to record the content of speech, but use the diacritics to note particularly salient non-verbal signs (body language, tone, pitch, loudness, pauses, code/style shifting, eye contact, etc.) that work to frame the speakers' words and imply their stances on things. Provide a small transcription key for the diacritics you chose to use from the handout chart provided.

Your final analysis can take part of the midterm analysis and expand on it, add more complex contexts, nuance or change your argument, add another part of the interaction or another event to compare/contrast. If you choose this option, the final analysis should have at least 7 pages of new writing. Or you can do another analysis entirely.