Questions We Can Help You To Answer
Paper instructions:
FINAL PROJECT: Life History
Finding a person to interview is the most challenging part of this assignment. Your subject should be someone who has experienced living in two cultures, such as an immigrant, refugee, or foreign visitor. Look for someone in your network of friends and family, or in your neighborhood or place of work, who seems friendly and sympathetic. Get their specific agreement to be interviewed and, if possible, recorded for this class project. They can remain anonymous if they wish. Your interview should last for somewhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours. See the custom LibGuide for references on conducting interviews and writing life history.
As soon as possible following the session, write down your impressions and thoughts. This will help you in the write-up stage.
Listen back to the whole interview at least once. When you find passages of interest, make a note of where they are in the recording, and listen to those passages repeatedly. Choose the most interesting section(s) to transcribe. Make a word-for-word transcription of these, for a total of 3-4 pages of transcription. Choose one or 2 pages of your transcription and mark this up in a narrow Conversation Analysis, using the same symbols we have used for other CA assignments and exercises.
Final submission: Due by 6 pm Wednesday December 6 (week 14)
8-10 pages
of which 3-4 pages are your summary and analysis
3-4 pages of transcription
1-2 pages of narrow CA transcription
Your summary and analysis section should consider the following:
Notes on dialect and accent
pay attention to vowels in particular
words and phrases used – idiomatic expression
Presentation of self (see Goffman slides in Course Material)
role playing and interaction
projections of confidence or self-deprecation, openness or reticence
affect, gesture, body language
Sociolinguistic analysis
speech community
gender, age, cultural background
