In the second half of the semester, your focus will be on a specific case of language contact, language conflict, and language rights. Students have been randomly assigned to a case study. There is a document entitled “Groups for Final Project” on the ICON (In the “Assignment Descriptions” module) that lists the case studies and the members of each group.
You can think of your work on this language conflict case study as consisting of two parts: there is an individual data mining component, which you will do on your own; and there is the presentation, which you will collaborate on with several other class members who have been assigned the same case. A description of the group project component is available in a separate document entitled “Description of Group Project- Language Conflict Case Study,” also located in the “Assignment Descriptions” module on ICON).
The data mining assignment is intended to get you busy collecting background information on the language conflict case you have been assigned to. This information will be part of your contribution to the group presentation. For the data mining assignment, you will identify and summarize two pieces of writing that deal with the language conflict you have been assigned to. These might be news articles, chapters from books, articles published in academic journals, editorials or other opinion pieces from popular media, or essays from activist sites. You cannot use articles that are included in the syllabus as required reading for the data mining assignments, and a Wikipedia article is NOT an acceptable source for this assignment; however, it is acceptable to use these resources to direct you to relevant material. (i.e. check the bibliographies of the course readings or visit sites that are linked at the end of a Wikipedia article).
Once you have identified relevant pieces, write a critical summary of the two articles. The person who reads your data mining paper should get a clear idea of what the focus of each piece is, what the author discussed, and what kinds of evidence or ideas the author relied on to make his or her point. To that end, the write-up should include:
- An introduction that offers an overview of the language conflict case you are working on, i.e. which language communities are involved, the basic historical facts that underlie the conflict and political, legal or social reflections of the conflict. (You may need to do some preliminary reading and searching to learn more about the case that you’ve been assigned. In most cases it will be helpful to look at the syllabus for initial background readings.)
- A concise, informative summary of each article that you read. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a brief summary, i.e. state what the main points of the article are. There should be no need to include extended quotations from the article in a short summary such as this. It is best to paraphrase the main points in your own words.
- A “critical” evaluation of each article, i.e. an assessment of the arguments put forward in the article. This part of the summary should evaluate the point of view of the author(s). To that end, consider questions like:
- Where and when did each article appear?
- What in the article is being presented as fact? What is being presented as opinion?
- What is the author’s agenda? Are they simply reporting on facts, or are they trying to persuade an audience?
- How does the author support this point? (Specifics are good; try to avoid sweeping generalizations.)
- What is the audience for each piece?
- What did you learn from each article?
Because this research should be contributing to your group presentation, it’s a good idea to confer with the other members of your group about which sources you intend to report on. The less duplication there is in your sources, the more ground your group will be covering in your background research. Please not that this is an individual writing assignmentYou should NOT be collaborating on this writing assignment—only sharing information about articles your own individual report will cover.
The write-up (summarizing both articles) should be at least one page long and no more than two pages in length. Your report should be formatted in portrait orientation with margins no greater than 1 inch, using 12-point font. Text should be single-spaced, with no empty lines between paragraphs. Be sure to include full bibliographic citations for the two pieces you summarize.
