Second warning and minor reprimand...

I have once before warned my dad that if he intends to comment on my blog, he will have to do it on my blog. Not by sending me an e-mail. The justification for this, ofcourse, is that the 'blog-o-sphere' is a community by its own rights. And a community that doesn't appreciate secret dealings at that!

As this is the second warning, I shall not publish the e-mail I have received in response to my previous blog, but I shall post my reply. A third warning will result in the publication of the e-mail :) :)

In response...

I have already mentioned in an earlier e-mail that I have no intention of being an observer. In fact, I'm a crucial part of my own research as well. Let me elaborate. I've discussed doing a thesis on code-switching and conversation analysis.

Follow the links to find out more.

Point is... I know what I want to do, and I have a clear idea. If you think that the misunderstandings are a bad thing, you are mistaken. In fact, it is precisely those misunderstandings that make this interesting as a thesis in linguistics.

It may be that linguistics has come a long way since the days that you studied it. For one, people are nowadays interested in natural data, along with all the flaws, and not necessarily in studying formal language. Linguists leave the study of formal written styles to those studying English and literature. Linguists are much more interested in the ways that people actually communicate.

If I were to do this study, I would have to spend a fair amount of time at home, as the first two to three weeks of recorded data would not be natural, as it would take all of us time to grow accustomed to being recorded. So this would be a study that would take about two months.

There is a much quoted study in this field on the dinner table conversations of a typical Jewish-American family. I can't remember the name of the study right now, but this academic found a very interesting rule in the discourse precisely because the rules were broken. The rule, for this family, in any case, was that the mother would always ask "and how was your day dear?" from everyone on the table. And this was revealed as a rule because one day she forgot to ask the 4-yr-old, who angrily responded "YOU DIDN'T ASK HOW MY DAY WAS!!!".

My study, however, would not be looking at the rules that guide discourse, but rather, at the rules that guide code-switching. I'm sure you've noticed that our dinner table conversation is more often than not consistent of three conversations, not just one. I'll talk to Mae in Thai, you in Finnish, and then we'll have spurts of English. I want to find what it is in the conversation that guides that switch of language in conversation.

On a broader level, this has practical applications in the real world where many people are competent in several languages and are able to code-switch with ease. I'm sure when it is all done, both you and Mae will find the study a quite insightful analysis of our own family life.

As far as transcripts are concerned, you don't have to worry - the privacy of the family is ofcourse the highest priority, and only a few samples from the data that are of linguistic structural interest will be used. In other words, I'm not interested in reporting on what we say around the dinner table, but rather, how we say it, and in which language.

Ok... I hope that answers some of your queries