the LINC Network

Postgraduate Funding Opportunities in Language and Communication Research

ESRC Studentships in Language and Communication at Cardiff

The Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR) is able to support applications to the ESRC Open Studentship Competition for PhD studentships, covering tuition fees for British and EU students plus a generous stipend.
You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. Further information is available here

In order to be considered for a studentship, in the first instance you need to apply for postgraduate study at Cardiff University. Please contact Dr Justine Coupland (PhD Admissions, CouplandJ@cf.ac.uk), or Professor Peter Garrett, (Director of Postgraduate Research, GarrettP@cf.ac.uk) or Mrs Dawn Harrington (CLCR Postgraduate Administrator, clcr-pg@cf.ac.uk) for further details.

Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentships (AHRC)

Under the Block Grant Partnership between the AHRC and the Centre for Language and Communication Research can also support applications for studentship awards, available in 2011/12, in the subject areas of Linguistics and in English Language and Literature. We invite applications for:

• 1 Research Preparation Masters in Linguistics.
• 1 doctoral award in Linguistics
• 3 doctoral studentship awards in English Language and Literature

You must apply for your Cardiff University degree programme by Monday 7th February 2011. For further details, application forms and guidance notes please visit
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/ahrcawards/index.html

Cardiff University President’s Research Scholarships

The University is making available 72 “flagship” postgraduate research awards which carry the prestige of association with the University’s new President, the Nobel Prize for Medicine (2007) winner, Professor Sir Martin Evans. A number of these awards are available for postgraduates seeking to research in the area of 'Re-constructing Multiculturalism'.
Deadline: The 2011/12 application process is beginning in Autumn 2010.
For more information, see: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/presidents/multiculturalism/index.html

School Research Bursaries and 'Cardiff 125' Scholarships

Please see the following webpage for more information.
http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/schoolfunding/

Please visit the Centre for Language and Communication website to find details of our primary research areas
http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/degreeprogrammes/postgraduateresearch/langcommunicationmphil/index.html

For more information about these and other funding opportunities please contact:
Sarah Robertson, Academic Support Officer (encap-ac@cf.ac.uk).
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/pg/funding/index.html

Cardiff University
Centre for Language and Communication Research
School of English, Communication and Philosophy

Insights into electronic language production through keystroke logging

This paper reports on one aspect of our Keystroke Project, namely, repairs and pauses in spontaneous, personal electronic language production found, for example, in e-mails, chatrooms and Facebook. The data used in this study were collected through the computer logging software ‘Inputlog’ (Leijten and Van Waes, 2006).

Keystroke logging is a methodological tool which “offers the opportunity to capture details of the activity of writing” (Spelman Miller and Sullivan, 2006:1). For example, Van Waes and Schellens (2003) investigated writing profiles and the effect of the writing mode on pausing and revision patterns of experienced writers and Miller (2005) used keystroke logging to study second language writing processes. To our knowledge, no work, to date, has explored the use of keystroke logging in spontaneous electronic language production and our aim is to fill this research gap.

We will extend Lindgren’s (2005) claim that keystroke logging closely registers traces of cognitive activity during on-line writing because the more spontaneous the language produced, the closer it is to revealing typical human processing. By analysing the spontaneous occurrences of repairs and pauses in data from Facebook and other personal, spontaneous CMC we will offer a description of electronic language production. We identify where pauses and linguistic repairs (lexical and grammatical) occur; we consider whether there is a distinction between the categories of function and content words; and classify spellings in relation to non-standard spellings and ‘ignored’ spellings. The following examples are typically found in our data

1. Your personal bag can be fairly big, light a tote bag. (‘light’ →’ like’)
2. To discuss what we can over (‘over’ → ‘offer’)
3. You had no write to write in his passport (‘write’ → ‘right’)

Through recording and analysing keystrokes we offer innovative insights into the connection between language and cognition.

References

• Leijten, M.; Van Waes, L. (2006) Inputlog: New Perspectives on the Logging of On-Line Writing. In: K. P. H. Sullivan; E. Lindgren (eds.) Computer Key-Stroke Logging and Writing: Methods and Applications. Oxford: Elsevier, 73-94
• Lindgren, E. (2005). Writing and revising: didactic and methodological implications of keystroke logging. Umea: Department of Modern Languages, Umea University.
• Miller, K. S. (2005). ‘Second language writing research and pedagogy: a role for computer logging’. Computers and Composition, 22(3), pp 297-317.
• Spelman Miller and Sullivan, (2006) Keystroke Logging: An Introduction. In: K. P. H. Sullivan; E. Lindgren (eds.) Computer Key-Stroke Logging and Writing: Methods and Applications. Oxford: Elsevier, 1-10.
• Van Waes, L and Schellens, P. J. (2003). ‘Writing profiles: the effect of the writing mode on pausing and revision patterns of experienced writers’. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 829-853.

A functional analysis of how the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts changed in response to the death of Diana Spencer

Natalie Osborn, Cardiff University

Dissertation Abstract (Year 3 undergraduate dissertation)

The stark contrast between the Royal and public mourning of Diana’s death, best explained as the stiff upper lip versus the trembling lip, drew attention to how disconnected the Monarchy has become from ‘the new, so-called emotionally honest Britain’ (Lee-Potter 2007), and gave way to a media-led backlash that saw their popularity plummet. In order to place themselves back in the public’s favour, and thus remain a publically funded institution, the Royals attempted to make themselves appear less remote. The scholarly and media world alike documented these modernising changes, which included the decision to make curtsying and bowing optional and the sparing use of ‘Royal Highness’ (Morton 1998: 293).

This dissertation examined four of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts in an effort to discover whether this Royal-restyle extended to the Queen’s textually created identity. A review of three political speeches’ rhetorical features generated eleven hypotheses outlining eleven linguistic changes, which if employed in the Christmas broadcasts could construct and support the Queen’s new accessible image. The analysis was approached from a Systemic Functional Linguistic perspective, and thus enabled changes to be tracked across three different areas of linguistically created meaning: the enactment of relationships, the representation of experience and the construal of coherence (Martin and Rose 2003: 6).

The use of inclusive pronouns, emotionally enriched language, collective referring expressions and simplicity of structure were identified as the main strategies which helped redefine the Queen as ‘in-touch’ with her public. The conclusion centres on Billig’s (1992) observation that Royalty maintain a dual identity of ordinariness and specialness, asserting that the Queen deliberately accentuated her ‘ordinary side’ to communicate the normality of her character, and encourage Britain to identify with her ‘as a daughter, a mother and a grandmother’ (1998 Christmas broadcast).

AHRC RESEARCH PREPARATION MASTERS STUDENTSHIP IN LINGUISTICS

We are pleased to invite applications for the above studentship in Linguistics, to start in September 2010.

This AHRC-funded studentship covering tuition fees for British and EU students, plus a generous stipend, is available for students applying for the MA in Applied Linguistics.

The studentship is intended as a research preparation MA for applicants wanting to pursue PhD research in this area. We would therefore also welcome expressions of interest for a three year PhD AHRC funded studentship to start in September 2011.

Please visit our webpages, clicking on ‘prospective students’, ‘postgraduate’, for further details and information about eligibility for these awards. The specific site for Linguistics can be found directly at http://courses.cardiff.ac.uk/funding/P348.html

In order to be considered for a studentship, in the first instance you need to apply for postgraduate study at Cardiff University. We are advising prospective applicants to apply for the MA programme as soon as possible, and in any case before 31st January 2010.

Information about the research interests and publications of all CLCR staff, details of past and current research projects, and our preferred themes for PhD research can be found on our website at:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/research/clcr/index.html

You can also contact any of the following staff for advice on how to apply:

Professor Nik Coupland, PhD Admissions, coupland@cardiff.ac.uk)
Dr Tom Bartlett, Director MA in Applied Linguistics, bartlettT@cardiff.ac.uk
Dr Joanna Thornborrow, Director PGR Studies, thornborrowj1@cardiff.ac.uk
Mrs Dawn Harrington, CLCR PGR Administrator, harringtond@cardiff.ac.uk

To download this announcement, please visit:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/fontaine/AHRC.doc

It's graduation time at Cardiff University. One of our graduating students, Scott Henderson, completed an excellent final year dissertation which explores the language of an online roleplaying community. Here's his abstract.

Language in an Online Roleplaying Community: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Account

Abstract
This dissertation explores the language of a mass multi-player online roleplaying community; the participants of which are involved in internet relay chats held by World of Warcraft game developers, Blizzard. The chats took place on ‘World of Warcraft Stratics’, a fansite for World of Warcraft.

Specifically, this dissertation aims to address the lack of research into the linguistic conventions of the online roleplaying community (and synchronous communication on the internet as a whole) by applying a systemic functional linguistics framework to communication occurring in the IRC ‘chat events’ held on ‘World of Warcraft Stratics’.

Two research questions were developed: the first concerning the use of Mood and modality as a representation of power relations between members of the IRC; the second, how personal opinion is reflected by participant and process choices in the ‘speech’ (text inputs into the IRC) of chatters. To perform the analysis, a data sample from 6 IRCs had a systemic functional grammar three-strand analysis performed on them, and frequencies of functional features required to gain understanding of power roles and personal opinion were taken. These frequencies were then used alongside key examples to explore the relationship between language, power and personal opinion in this ‘virtual community’ from a systemic functional linguistics perspective.