Synopses & Reviews
This is an invaluable companion for students undertaking a piece of independent research for the first time. It introduces the most commonly used tools and techniques of research and offers practical advice on how to choose a research topic, how to collect data, how to analyze it, and how to write up the results. The authors incorporate over 250 project ideas and cover plagiarism, referencing, the use of corpora, phonetic and orthographic transcription, and writing good English.
Synopsis
Shortlisted for the 1999 BAAL Book prize.Giving an overview of major themes in the areas of linguistics most commonly chosen by students, and introducing the tools and techniques of research, this book provides practical advice on how to choose a research topic, how to collect data and analyse it, and how to write up the results. Incorporating over 250 project ideas, and covering plagiarism, referencing, the use of corpora, phonetic and orthographic transcription, and tips on writing good English, 'Projects in Linguistics' is a treasure-trove of information.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Projects on
Psycholinguistics
First language acquisition and development
Conversation analysis
Second language acquisition
Style in texts
Sociolinguistics
Accents and dialects of English
Structure and meaning
Historical linguistics
Language and gender
Part 2: Techniques
Tape recording data
Experiments
Questionnaires
Interviews
Observation and case studies
Part 3: Tools
Transcribing speech phonetically and phonemically
Transcribing speech orthographically
Using computers to study text
Data Protection Act
How to reference
Plagiarism and how to avoid it
Statistics
Using an abstracting journal
Handy hints on writing good academic English
References.