(1)   FIELDWORK PROJECT AND FINAL PAPER

The fieldwork assignment will be discussed at length in the third week of the course and in the tutorials, further guidelines will be provided throughout the semester. You will be asked to select a topic of your interest and do personal fieldwork observations about the topic you have chosen. In tutorials you will frequently be asked to draw upon your observations and data collected in relation to the course theme of that week. The short assignments – blog posts and discussion questions – are meant to help you in your research endeavors and to encourage you to work on this project in a timely manner.

The methods with which linguistic anthropologists conduct their research were discussed in the second week of class. Following this week you are asked to start thinking about what kind of project you would like to conduct. Suggestions include (1) the study of a particular “community of practice” and how this community is shaped through and by language use and other material practices (e.g. how are athletic groups or online communities distinguishable through the language they use, the contexts they engage in, their social environment, etc.?) (2) Secondly, you could investigate bilingualism and multilingualism: how does speaking several languages impact young people’s linguistic behavior? How do they switch, when, why? (3) Or you could conduct a little fieldwork: observe a linguistic interaction between individuals, transcribe it, and provide an in-depth analysis of what is going on.

This will all become much clearer in the third week of classes and there will be plenty of time in tutorials to further discuss the details of your project. Technical terms such as “fieldwork,” “transcription,” and “community of practice” will make much more sense a little further on in the semester. The main purpose of this exercise is to make this course applicable to your daily lives, and to make you understand how linguistic anthropology can help you think differently about language and language use in daily interactions.