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EL1101E/GEK1011: The Nature of Language Dr.

Rebecca Starr
Semester 1, 201415 Takehome Group Project

Group Project

Pedagogical Purpose of the Project

The purpose of this takehome group project is to provide you with firsthand experience in
a) doing independent linguistic research involving data collection and analysis.
b) exercising and nurturing your criticalanalytical skills.

Important Notes

If you find some parts of the instructions of the project unclear, let us know immediately. If you
run into any problems with your peers, please bring it to our attention before the due date.

Due Date: WEEK 11 Tuesday Lecture 10AM (Oct 28)

Soft copy:
A workbin folder has been created on IVLE for each tutorial section. Upload a soft copy of your
project into the appropriate student submission folder on IVLE by 28 Oct 10AM. Your soft copy
should consist of one file that includes both the write-up of your project and an appendix with a
table of your survey results, as explained in the instructions on the following pages.

Hard copy:
At the lecture meeting, please submit to your tutor a stapled or bound collection of the original
surveys and consent forms you have collected as part of the project. Please indicate the name of
the student who collected that survey on a top corner of each page. You do not need to submit a
hard copy of your writeup for the project.

Assessment

Your group will be assessed based on how well you follow the instructions, how carefully you
collect data, how well you interpret the reading provided, how well you present your analyses, and
how much thought you put into the open-ended responses. Some portions of this assignment are a
bit challenging, so dont worry about getting everything 100% correct, just show us that you have
put in your best effort and, where appropriate, explain the reasoning behind the conclusions you
draw.

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EL1101E/GEK1011: The Nature of Language Dr. Rebecca Starr
Semester 1, 201415 Takehome Group Project

Group Project: Use and Perception of the BATH/TRAP Distinction

Introduction

In this project, you will collect data for a research project about how people from different regions
use and perceive phonological variation in English. At the end of the semester, we will collect all
the group project data together if we find anything interesting, we will publish a research paper! If
you would like to be involved in the research project after the semester is over, let me know.
This project is about the BATH/TRAP distinction. In some dialects of English, such as
Received Pronunciation, words in the bath category (including pass, staff, rather, etc.) are
pronounced using the // vowel, while words in the trap category (including bat, mass, tax, etc.) are
pronounced using the // vowel. In other dialects, like General American English, words in both
these categories are pronounced with the same vowel, //.
The goal of this project is to investigate a few research questions: (1) Are young
Singaporeans moving toward an American BATH/TRAP merger, or maintaining the British
BATH/TRAP distinction? (2) What factors predict whether non-Singaporeans living in Singapore
use the BATH/TRAP distinction? (3) What factors predict how familiar people in Singapore are
with how the BATH and TRAP vowels are pronounced in the US and UK?

Task 1: Dialect variation background

We will use paper surveys to collect data for this project. In the IVLE group project folder, you will
see a file called EL1101E_group_project_survey.pdf. This survey includes three parts: (1) a
consent form, (2) a phonological survey (3) a personal background survey. Notice that the
phonological survey asks participants for three responses for each word: how they pronounce it
themselves, how they think it is pronounced in London, and how they think it is pronounced in
California.
In the US, there is a total BATH/TRAP merger for almost all regional dialects. Thus, the
correct answer for the California column in the survey is always CAP (//). The London column is
more tricky. For the first task, you will investigate the pronunciation of these words in London and
make some predictions about Singapore.

1. In the IVLE group project folder there is a file called john_wells.pdf with an excerpt from
John Wells book Accents of English. Please read the starred sections (2.2.3 and 2.2.7).
2. Also read the section on the trap-bath split on the Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_short_A
3. Based on the material in Wells book, we can distinguish FIVE categories of words from the
survey. Describe these five categories.
4. Create a table listing each of the words in the survey, and assign them a category from the
five categories developed in #3.
5. In the same table, create a column listing the vowel that London speakers should use for
each word, based on the Wells passage. Note: for some words, the prediction will be that
pronunciation will vary, while for other words it will not vary.
6. Create another column listing how you expect Singaporeans to pronounce each word.
7. In a passage of approx. 250 words, explain how you arrived at your predictions for #6.

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EL1101E/GEK1011: The Nature of Language Dr. Rebecca Starr
Semester 1, 201415 Takehome Group Project

Task 2: Data Collection

Now its time to collect data! Print out at least four copies of EL1101E_group_project_survey.pdf
for each member of your group.

1. Each individual student in the group must collect surveys from:


3 native Singaporeans (born in Singapore, currently living in Singapore)
1 person who is currently living in Singapore but was born elsewhere (China, Philippines,
etc.). Please do not survey individuals born in the US or the UK.

2. Create a spreadsheet (or multiple spreadsheets) and input the data your group collected. It is up to
your group to decide how to organize the spreadsheets to convey all the important data from the
surveys.

Important Notes:
As this is a research project involving human subjects, we are going through the approval
process from the human subjects research board at NUS. This is why we need to follow
certain procedures, such as the consent form.
On the consent form, there is an option for participants to decline to have their responses
used for published research. Please make it clear to participants that they are free to select
this option it will not affect your mark on the group project.
Please print out hard copies and conduct the survey in person do not conduct this survey
online via email, etc.
Please do not give participants any background information about the bath/trap distinction
before they take the survey (e.g., how it is pronounced in the US vs. the UK). However, if
participants ask you to clarify some part of the survey, such as which vowels they are
supposed to be choosing between, please do clarify that information.
If participants ask you for the correct answers while they are filling out the survey, please
emphasize to them that we are just looking for their own personal intuitions. After they are
done with the survey, you may explain to them some of the dialect differences you have
learned about in Task 1 above.
Responses to the survey will be anonymous. Please clarify this for participants if they ask.
You may ask your family and friends to participate in fact, we encourage you to include
some older people in your survey.
You may NOT survey students currently enrolled in EL1101E.
You may NOT survey anyone who is in a subordinate position to you who may feel
pressured to participate (e.g., someone employed by your family as a helper).
Please do not survey someone who has already taken the survey for another group in
EL1101E.
You will need to turn in the original copies of these surveys, so hold on to them. We advise
that you staple the sheets together so that you do not lose track of which consent form goes
with which survey.

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EL1101E/GEK1011: The Nature of Language Dr. Rebecca Starr
Semester 1, 201415 Takehome Group Project

Task 3: Data Analysis

Using the data that your group has collected, address the following questions. For each question,
please present the raw data results and then approximately 150 words of analysis. If you know how
to perform an appropriate statistical test, please do so, but it is not necessary.

For Singaporean survey responses:

1. Create a measure of how consistent the Singaporean I pronounce it... responses are with
the London usage data you have created in Task 1.

(a) Are all Singaporeans doing the same thing, or is there variation? If you find variation,
does it appear to correlate with age, gender, time spent abroad, or any other factors?
(b) What did you find for the stable set of words? What did you find for the words that
Wells thinks are variable?
(c) How does the actual data compare to your predictions for what Singaporeans will do
from Task 1?

2. Create a measure of how consistent the Singaporean I pronounce it... responses are with
what they THINK London speakers do. Do all of your Singaporean respondents believe that
they use the same vowels as London speakers? How can you account for your results?

3. Create a measure of how consistent the Singaporean In London they say... responses are
with the London usage data you have created in Task 1.

(a) Do Singaporeans have an accurate perception of how people speak in London?


(b) Does accuracy correlate with consumption of UK media or time spent in the UK?

4. Create a measure of how consistent the Singaporean In California they say... responses
are with the correct answer (//).

(a) Are the Singaporeans in your survey aware that there is a BATH/TRAP merger in the
US?
(b) Does accuracy correlate with consumption of US media or time spent in the US?

For non-Singaporean survey responses:

1. Are your non-Singaporeans using RP-like BATH/TRAP distinction, a US-like merger, or


some other pattern?
2. Can you account for their vowels based on their home countries, or does it seem random?
3. Does time spent in Singapore correlate with using Singaporean-like vowels?
4. Do the non-Singaporeans seem more or less aware of how the BATH/TRAP distinction
works in the UK and US compared to the Singaporean participants?

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EL1101E/GEK1011: The Nature of Language Dr. Rebecca Starr
Semester 1, 201415 Takehome Group Project

Task 4: Discussion

Compose a discussion of your results, consisting of approximately 400 words. You may optionally
address any of the following points:
What do these findings say about Singaporean English in relation to British English?
Do you believe that other features of Singaporean English would pattern similarly to
BATH/TRAP in terms of alignment to US vs. UK, or are there some features that you feel
are behaving differently?
Were you surprised at the findings of Singaporean awareness of US English pronunciation,
or were they consistent with your expectations?
Were you surprised at the findings of Singaporean vs. non-Singaporean pronunciation, or
were they consistent with your expectations?
What do these findings say about the influence of media consumption on language?
How do you think this research could be expanded in the future?

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