Week Four - GLA feedback

Following Alison's feedback and our group meeting today, here's the list of elements that need editing in our GLA (aside from the title, which we edited in our meeting):

• See Cameron regarding 'problems': how may we explain the different use of hedges? Gender is only one independent variable. Consider the relationship between the interlocutors, particularly their face needs.
• Consider the situation of our research with regards to the above point: today we decided to edit our methodology in accordance with our feedback to a less 'artificial' situation. We agreed that asking "what has been your most embarrassing moment?", within 1 minute, would provoke a similarly useful response in terms of the use of hedges, but this is question might be taken with a little less confusion compared to our previous idea with a piece of fruit.
• 'Stratified' sample? How is our sample stratified? Either clarify this or remove it, and explain more coherently how we are going to sample our population for transcription.
• Define 'hedges'. We need to all be clear on what we are listening out for. As with most metalinguistic terms, there are probably a lot of different definitions for hedges out there, so perhaps we could find a few of those to form our own agreement and definition?
• Remove 'unique' from our description of hedges. Lakoff didn't say hedges were 'unique to womens; speak', only that they were more common than in males.
• Remove 'Lakoff was the first to really...' as this is inaccurate.
• We need to explore and discuss any ethical issues.
• Form a clear, educated and accurate idea of the role that gender has in interactions.
• Look into J. Coates and J. Cheshire with regards to gender and power.

We also need to clarify who is going to conduct the interviews; Alison proposed one idea that we recruited a male for the purposes of asking other males, and I'm not sure we came to a conclusion on this in our meeting? Or was it that we decided our informants would be from a 'friendship' level of relationship, for both genders, in the hope that this would reduce any potential awkwardness from male informants?

In general, we were quite pleased with our feedback and feel that the points made were useful ones that we can definitely work on. Before our next meeting on Thursday, we are each going to have redrafted a section of the GLA in light of these points.