A2 Coursework Investigation Idea

Investigation 1


*Hypothesis - Parents talk to their child in accordance with their gender --> Men will use more directive language strategies when talking to boys, lexical precision and politeness strategies are used more with girls, boys are given more commands than girls especially by their dad's. 


* Methodology -  To record the interaction between a dad and his two children ( girl: 10 years old, boy: years old) when carrying out an activity, in this case it is a puzzle. I will be collecting data such as the turns taken, average number of air time, number of commands given to each child, politeness strategies etc. I will then create another stimulus but this time it will be the father alone with one child, this is to see how the father's language changes as well as to see if the patterns found in the first stimulus continues. Creating another stimulus will also allow me to compare the results that I have found and will enable me to create a more valid conclusion. I will then supplement the recordings with a questionnaire for the father and children, this will mainly be questions regarding the language used by the father and to see if this is typical.


*Issues - The main issue with my investigation is the observer's paradox; this is where the participants involved change their behaviour due to the knowledge of being observed. In order to avoid this I will ask the mum of the two children to record both interactions, this will make it more natural and hopefully minimise the effects of the observer's paradox. I will of course make sure to ask the permission of the children and the father, both before and after the interaction to make my investigation ethical.