Research projects
This section includes a number of research and studies I carried out as part of my degrees. The magnitude of the projects ranges from 3,000 word paragraphs to 10,100 word thesis but what's more important to note here are the area of research and the methodology of these projects in order to get a good overview of my range of skills. This is certainly a humble, unpublished list but they were all A grade and above. I have future plans to get published and pursue a higher qualification. For now, this would do.
AREA & TITLE
[LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE]
Top-down and bottom-up multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia
SKILLS & TOOLS
NVivo, data annotation, quantitative data analysis
DATA
747 photos of signage on premises in Kota Iskandar, Nusa Bayu, Rumah Iskandar, and Puteri Harbour, Iskandar Puteri Malaysia
METHODOLOGY
Locations selected represent housing area, government office hub and metropolitan district respectively. All photos are coded and tagged for being either monolingual, bilingual, multilingual. The languages the signs are written in are recorded and their "dominance" are quantified. The dominance of a language is characterised by the order of their appearance and their size. Their language choices demonstrate bottom-up and top-down multilingualism.
AREA & TITLE
[DISCOURSE ANALYSIS]
The discursive strategies used by a group of YouTubers to identify as beauty YouTubers using social constructionist framework
SKILLS & TOOLS
NVivo, speech transcription, data annotation
METHODOLOGY
This study looks at identity construction using the social constructionist lens, an interaction involving a group of participants as opposed to a single participant to elicit strategies and practices in the co-construction and negotiation of identity. It presents both the linguistic and non-linguistic strategies used by the YouTubers in i) affirming the participants’ identity as beauty YouTubers and ii) assigning the roles of hearer as viewer. The analysis follows the social constructionist lens that views identities as an emergence rather than a source.
AREA & TITLE
[SOCIOLINGUISTICS, PHONOLOGY]
The association between the Malaysian Malay women’s pronunciations of /r/ and their social backgrounds
SKILLS & TOOLS
Phonetic transcription, qualitative data analysis
DATA
A 2-hour film called Gol & Gincu ‘Goal(post) & Lipstick’ (GG) and a television series Hero Seorang Cinderella ‘the Hero of A Cinderella’ (HSC)
METHODOLOGY
This study examines the stratification of pre- and/or postvocalic r pronunciations among a group of female characters (in a futsal team), ranging from the most "masculine" in appearance and speech to the most "feminine" (main lead). The main lead's pronunciations in the film are then compared to hers in the other series to show that the differential pronunciations are motivated by her characterisation, not her idiolect.
AREA & TITLE
[SOCIOLINGUISTICS, LANGUAGE VARIATION]
The differential uses of pronoun pairs (aku-kau, saya-awak 'I-you') among Malay speakers and the relationships with age, gender, intimacy, and familiarity
SKILLS & TOOLS
Quantitative data analysis, qualitative data analysis, media analysis, questionnaires, Google Form
DATA
Questionnaires findings, local media contents (film and drama), and search engine results for idiomatic expressions
METHODOLOGY
This research project involves self-reports through questionnaires, observation on local media contents such as film and drama, and the use of corpus and concordances (search engine results) to discover the pronoun pair choices in different social situations. It explores the preferential use according to the speaker and hearer's age and gender, their intimacy, familiarity or closeness and social gaps.
AREA & TITLE
[SOCIOLINGUISTICS, PHONOLOGY]
The relations between prestige and gender through Malay speakers’ pronunciations of English /ð/ & /θ/ in careful and casual speech
SKILLS & TOOLS
Research validity, unbiased/non-leading conversation, diverse and creative research materials, pilot testing
DATA
Target features TH in words elicited through casual interviews, paragraph reading and minimal pairs
METHODOLOGY
This study focuses on TH-stopping in syllable initial (e.g. 'thin', 'this') and syllable final (e.g. 'mouth') positions as well as TH-fronting in syllable final (e.g. 'birthday') position. There are three levels of careful to casual speech created in this study: i) casual and not attentive to the target feature, ii) formal but not attentive, and iii) formal and attentive. These are elicited through i) casual chat/interview, ii) paragraph reading, and iii) minimal pair list (θ vs t) and (ð vs d) respectively.