Linguistics 103 Hayes/Lefkowitz General Phonetics Winter 2012 Term Paper Assignment Write a term paper of about 8 pages, illustrating the sounds of some language that you cannot speak. The paper should be based on the speech of fluent native speaker of the target language, whom you will recruit to serve as your consultant. Include with your paper a CD that illustrates the sounds of the language, as spoken by your consultant. The goal of the project is to give you an opportunity to practice your skills of listening to and transcribing the speech sounds of a language other than English or your native language. You will also get experience working with phonemes and allophones, in extracting facts from a reference source, and in writing up an oriignal research paper. For a sample paper and other information about the project, visit http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/TermPaper.htm. Here are the steps involved in a Linguistics 103 term project. The notations for WEEKS show a recommended schedule for working on the project without having a frantic rush at any one time. 1. WEEKS 1-2. Choose a speaker and language for your project. Do not use a speaker who has already been studied, and do not use a language you speak. I will give extra consideration to projects on languages that are less familiar or more difficult (e.g. tone languages). Be sure that your consultant is a native speaker who still speaks the language fluently,1 and has some time to work with you.2 The speaker should be able to come to the Linguistics Department to make a recording; this will produce a recording that is much easier to transcribe. It helps if both you and the consultant can read the orthography (spelling system) of the language. 2. WEEK 3. Find a reference source (by which I mean a published book or journal article) on the phonetics of the language, or (if nothing is available) on some closely related language. You want something that lists and describes the sounds of your language, ideally including a description of all the variants of each sound in different contexts. It’s possible that a good source has already been found and place on reserve in Powell. You can take it out for a couple hours and Xerox what you need. To consult the Linguistics 103 reserve list, visit visit http://catalog.library.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?PAGE=rbSearch&DB=local/ and select this course. 1 A native speaker is one who learned the language no later than early childhood and has continued to have the opportunity to speak the language since then. One way to check for purposes of this course is to ask: “Do native speakers of your language think you speak with an accent?” 2 Ideally: I. Session 1, one hour, draft word list II. Session 2, 45 minutes, revise the list III. recording, 20 minutes in Campbell Hall. Less is possible in a pinch.Linguistics 103 Term Paper Instructions p. 2 If that doesn’t work out, try this: (a) Patterns of Sounds by Ian Maddieson, on reserve in Powell, which contains charts of the phonemes and references to books, for many (but not all) languages. (c) The World’s Major Languages (ed. by Bernard Comrie), on reserve, has short sketches and references for about 50 languages. (d) Handbook of the IPA, on reserve, with phonetic sketches of 29 languages; (e) textbooks that teach the language; (e) The UCLA online library catalog (http://catalog.library.ucla.edu ); (f) Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/) and Google Books (http://books.google.com). The latter source usually won’t give you the whole book, but you can then get the book from the library. You must use at least one authentic peer-reviewed source, by which I mean: something that appeared in a published book or scholarly journal. Sometimes amateur web sources (like Wikipedia) can be very good, and you may use them to supplement your main research. But I thinks it’s important to get practice in finding traditional sources, which I why I am emphasizing them. The better the published material you find, the less time you’ll have to spend with your consultant. But don’t try to read every book in the library. They are bound to disagree with each other, and you will get confused. What you want is to find is a good source (i.e. careful and detailed), rather than conduct a fishing expedition. Feel free to bring sources to my office hours (M 11-12, Thr. 2-3 and by appt.) and I will assess them for you. Dictionaries usually don’t have a systematic presentation of the sound system, but they certainly can be helpful for finding relevant words. The UCLA library has many, many foreign language dictionaries. The earlier you look for your reference sources, the less likely you will find all the material you want already checked out of the library. When you don’t find a book on the library shelf, don’t despair! Often, it’s checked out to another reader, and you can have it called in from them (http://www.library.ucla.edu/service/162.cfm) . Also, it is sometimes possible to get hard-to-obtain stuff on interlibrary loan (http://www2.library.ucla.edu/service/ill.cfm). 3. WEEKS 4 AND 5. Make a tentative list of the phonemes of the language, their allophones, and lots of words illustrating them (including vowels, consonants, and suprasegmentals). Make sure you understand phonemes and allophones before you do this.3 Your list should include minimal pairs or sets for phonemes where possible. Use as a model the lists used in language demonstrations in class. The list should be short, and should work by this formula: - Illustrate the consonants with a minimal set. - Illustrate the vowels with a minimal set. - Illustrate the tones (if any) with a minimal set - Provide a small set of words illustrating allophones 3 A study source: http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/HayesOnPhonemes.pdf.Linguistics 103 Term Paper Instructions p. 3 - A sentence that includes several words from the list If your reference source does not describe allophones (or even if it does), download and study this document: http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/FindingAllophones.pdf. Since at this point you are preparing a list to work on with your consultant, you should have extra examples, since some words are bound not to work out. The more work you do now, the more efficiently you can spend the time you have with your consultant. Every linguist regards