The aim of this project is to create a contemporary corpus of spoken and written language in Ireland which can be used for research and pedagogical purposes : Linguistics with Tesol, Dissertation, UOL, Ireland

SECTION TWO: DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH STUDY

2.1 Purpose of research. Aims/context/need for research

The aim of this project is to create a contemporary corpus of spoken and written language in Ireland which can be used for research and pedagogical purposes. In this case, a ‘corpus’ is a principled collection of naturally occurring language (e.g. Biber et al. 1998), such as written texts and transcribed spoken language, which is stored electronically and can be explored using specialised linguistic analysis software.

Over the years, corpora have proven fundamental to capturing and describing with sophistication and accuracy how language is actually used in everyday life, and this approach to language description has changed the way that language itself is conceptualised. Major corpus projects have been undertaken at the University of Limerick in the past, notably the Limerick Corpus of Irish English which consists of approximately one million words of spoken Irish English (Farr, Murphy and O’Keeffe, 2004), compiled in collaboration with Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Despite remaining a unique resource, this corpus is now almost twenty years old, and the contribution of the present project will be to create a resource which contains contemporary language data, particularly spoken language data. Interdisciplinary approaches to corpus linguistics is a key strength in our research, and core to teaching on our undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

This project has the twin aim of training our students in corpus linguistics through authentic interaction with the planning and design of corpora, ethical and issues in collecting language data and metadata, practical decisions around transcription, developing relevant research questions, and using specialised software in combination with discourse analytic approaches in analysing corpora.

2.2 Research methodology. This must detail how you will interact with your research subjects (focus groups/interviews/ online surveys etc). (300 words maximum)

Spoken language will be recorded by participants who are fully apprised of the purpose of the project (see Appendix: Information Letter and Consent Form), and these spoken data will be transcribed orthographically for compilation as an electronic corpus.

Corpus analysis tools, or Concordancers (e.g. Sketch Engine: https://www.sketchengine.eu/), will be used to generate quantitative and qualitative insights into the data, and it is envisaged that a broader corpus-based discourse analytic approaches will be blended to analyse the corpus in depth. Sample questions and their associated methodologies include (but are not limited to) sociolinguistic and pragmatic studies e.g. focussing on the use of general pragmatic markers such as ‘like’, ‘you know’ and ‘I mean’ and those which have been found to have particular uses in Irish English, such as ‘sure’, ‘now’ and ‘there’ (see Amador-Moreno, McCafferty and Vaughan 2015). Larger discourse-related questions around the features of linguistic (im)politeness in everyday contexts in

Ireland, more specific micro-level questions such as the nature of taboo language in contemporary spoken Irish English (Farr and Murphy 2009; Murphy 2009; Schweinberger 2018) and questions relating to the analysis of the grammar and lexis of spoken Irish

English (Filppula 1999; Hickey 2007; Kallen 2013) will be possible with a resource of this type. Written texts collected in the Irish context may ultimately also form a part of this corpus project, and their inclusion would also be subject to specific ethical and permissions-based concerns. However, in the first five-year phase, the project focuses on spoken language.

2.3 Sample questions. Sample questions for interviews/focus groups should be included. You may attach a separate documentas part of your appendices file if necessary.

SECTION FIVE: RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

5.1. Explain why the use of human participants is essential to your research project.

Spoken language is at the heart of this project, and specifically naturally occurring spoken
language, and so it cannot proceed without human participants who agree to be recorded as they engage in everyday conversation.

5.2 Who will your participants be? Please do not give names except where a participant’s identity is impossible to conceal.

In a project of this type, there is no specific demographic or group targeted though it is anticipated that many will be in the social sphere of the researchers and people who choose to participate.

A critical concern for the investigators, both faculty and students, will be that all identifying information will be removed, minimal personal data is solicited, and the language data itself completely anonymised (e.g. removing names, any named entities, etc.). This is equally true of the metadata: basic information such as region, age and gender, for example, will be preserved but anonymised. While we plan to maintain the recordings as is usual in a project of this type in order to ensure the corpus is valid, only the anonymised electronic texts (the corpus) will be available to student researchers.

5.3 How do you plan to gain access to/contact/approach your potential participant(s)?
The approach in this project is broadly analogous to a more principled form of crowd-sourcing: students who participate in the

FYP practicum, those interested in the area of corpus linguistics and who want to contribute and use the corpus will choose, after consultation with the principal researcher, an appropriate way to reach potential participants – through invitation email or in conversation, for example. It is a fact that much data of this type is opportunistically collected, and strict procedures with relation to informed consent and freedom to withdraw or rescind data is therefore far more important. Where student-researchers are in contact with (potential) participants, training and mentorship around ethics and communicating research purposes/processes clearly in relation to informed consent will be in place in advance to ensure that processes in relation to informed consent are strictly adhered to, and these will be overseen by the faculty researchers. As an alternative where this is not appropriate, the researcher(s) will nominate a gate-keeper to approach potential participants. This person will not be directly involved in the research, and therefore potential participants should not feel under pressure to agree to take part. The gate-keeper will arrange to communicate with the potential participants, give them details about the study and give the information and consent forms to them.

Transcribed material for the corpus which is used in a Final Year Project research is not part of the assessment, rather the analysis of that material is what is assessed. However, any material generated as part of formal assessment for this or anyother modules will not be included as part of the corpus until after the assessment process relating to the relevant module has been fully completed.