#variation project

Evy sketch ~

I don’t kuow but fun painted! <3 (sorry the answer late.)

Vari on Variation Project. 

Evy is ready to sing teehee ! ( * ^ * ) ❤

As I announced the previous post, I will share reflection about my variation project. Although it was a very CHALLENGING assignment, I'm glad to experience the process of writing academic papers! Also, I really like reading research articles as some of you may know that I'm very excited with statistical analysis lol Even though it is still partial, I have been explored to the research that has already been done by many scholars. Anyway, as you may see my findings on Moodle, I was very surprised by the fact that gender might have a greater influence on greeting expressions than relationship between participants. Before conducting this study, I somehow expected that social distance between interlocutors would influence the variation of English greetings a lot because the relationship between customer and clerk in Japan seems to keep a certain social distance between them, which is mostly facilitated by clerks. In addition, this was not so important but personally surprising that "what's up" was preferred by men! In college, I often greeted "what's up" to my friends...so I thought "what's up" can be used between close friends. Indeed, since I came to Monterey, I've heard "what's up" by only male students! It was very surprising that I had been ignorant of such difference! So, the variation project helped me become more sensitive to English as a language. Before conducting this project, English was still partially a academic subject for me; in other words, I have learned only very surface of English such as grammar points. Through this project, however, I have recognized English as a language that people use to communicate with each other, which requires the understanding of social factors associated with them. Once my friend told me that teaching a language meant teaching the culture of the target language. I totally agree with her right now! (At the time when she mentioned to me, I wasn't sure what her suggestion meant.) The variation project was very helpful for me to develop my understanding of English as a language :) Back to the class last week, we had the jigsaw reading/discussion! I liked the jigsaw readings this time! Particularly, I was amazed by the study that Bourhis and Giles conducted. How creative they were!! This is one of the reasons that I like to read research articles! I'm always inspired by such a creative research design! The results of this study seems to suggest that people find their identities in their native languages. The jigsaw reading will be continued in the next class~! How exciting!

Also, we did jigsaw reading & discussion. I read Labov & Cheshire. I was very excited when I finally could read Labov's study "fourth floor"~ I was very surprised how Labov conducted the study when I heard of it. Although the article was not original, but still I could see the whole picture of his study. The results suggested that highest and lowest social groups were more likely to keep their pronunciation styles. It was very interesting! In addition, I read Cheshire's study, which investigated how people overused the 3rd-person singular form. The results revealed that boys were more likely to value vernacular norms, whereas girls were more likely to value their personal variation! During the jigsow reading, I learned what other groups read, which will be very helpful for my variation project paper. In the 7th week, after summarizing our jigsaw discussion, we mostly focused on our variation paper. I'm so glad that I could collected variations! Also, my variation charts looks good :) From now, however, I have to look the results more closely! Also, I will find articles for my literature review! The summary of jigsaw discussion was so helpful that I will definitely look the original article of Cheshire because she investigated gender as one of her research variable that I did for my study. I once did long and long literature review for my capstone (final thesis), which was very fun (although it took a lot of time!) because I gained a lot of information and knowledge of its field. I'm also very glad to take a look previous paper to understand the structure of paper. Next week, I will be very busy with variation project paper as well as other classes' assignment, but keep calm and carry on! I can do it :)