LING 620 Proseminar/Thesis Formal Proposal Feedback
NAME OF PRESENTER ……Romy
1. TITLE
After talking phonology, you title becomes so intelligible to me. There are so many
rules about vowel lengthening, consonant lengthening, you can narrow it down and
choose a small portion from the grand pool of rules. You really have sharp ideas, Romy.
2. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA
Very nice line of narrowing down your research area.
3. AIM/JUSTIFICATION
I did not read many articles concerning the consonants and vowels by nonnative speakers.
But I do know when I was learning English, my teacher only emphasized vowels, for
consonants, we just find a lot similarities from our native language. I did not know there
was vowel lengthening before voiced consonants until I took phonology class.
4. REFERENCES
You give a very clear introduction of all your references. You have found sufficient
references to build your research on. You even specify the one you built your research
method on. It looks like you are ready to land.
5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
I think you research can lead you to the answers of your questions.
6. METHODOLOGY
Very nice design in terms of methodology, 3 group comparison. However, I biggest
concern is how you judge their English proficiency by naming them advanced and lowlevel.
Reading is different from speaking. When we speak, we change our intonations and
stresses, even length of certain vowels and consonants to achieve different purposes. If
you find the clip from youtube on “ o, my God” expressed by different actors from “
FRIENDS” at different situations you will know what I mean. Therefore, to make your
data more authentic, I am wondering whether you can use story telling instead of reading.
7. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Do you have standard Arabic dialect in Lebanon? I mean the prestigious dialect but not
the one intelligible to other Arabic countries? How many people can speak this
prestigious dialect? Will the speaker who can speak this prestigious dialect produce
English sounds differently from those who can’t speak this prestigious dialect?
.
8. EXPECTED FINDINGS
As an nonnative speaker, I feel those who can speak very good English really have very good
control of month opening and lengthening of vowels. I guess there is going to be a great difference
9. OVERALL COMMENTS phonology is so hard to teach, Romy you at only did very well
in phonology class, today you will even demonstrate your favor to phonology by
conducting a research for your graduation paper. I am very glad you will do one like this. I
believe your search result will have great impact of language teaching. When Dr. Gordy
decides to really enjoy retirement life, I wish you could come back and teach phonology
courses at our department.
LING 620 Proseminar/Thesis Formal Proposal Feedback
NAME OF PRESENTER: Romy Ghanem
1. TITLE
The title explicitly highlights the direction of the study.
2. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA
The explanation of the key term is clear. Helping your listeners note the
difference between vowel length in Arabic and English makes it easy to
understand the significance of your study. However, it is not clear what
determines whether a vowel is long or short in Arabic and whether this has an
effect on the articulation of Arabic consonants, and by extension, articulation of
English consonants.
3. AIM/JUSTIFICATION
Good grounds for your study. Have you found other studies related to this topic
onresearch
Into other languages?
on other languages?
3. REFERENCES
Your choice of references is relevant. The last one looks pretty much like what you
will be
on with the exception of ‘physiological control’. More info on this one would help
clear the
difference between your study and Raphael’s study. Have you found other studies
related to this
on research into other languages? A comparison of your findings and others of the
same kind
might help back up your findings.
4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Great questions. How do you make sure that your subjects give you their true
TOEFL scores, and more specifically, the speaking score?
5. METHODOLOGY
a. SUBJECTS/SOURCES
The grouping is well thought out. My only concern is that you intend to
have very few native speakers. Considering that they too have their
variations (depending on dialect) in the production of vowels, sometimes
diphthongizing what should not be or lengthening some that are short, you
may need a bigger group of native speakers, then check on average, how
they pronounce the vowels. This might make analysis of data easier than
you have to compare group ½ with a group 3 where the latter has a variety
of vowel lengths.
b. MATERIALS/INSTRUMENTS
Good. It is not clear whether you will have the minimal pairs together or
individually at the end of a sentence. If you have the minimal pairs
together, there is a possibility that the subjects will notice the words and
be more conscious when they read them. Words that rhyme tend to draw
attention to themselves.
c. PROCEDURE
Well stated.
d. TYPE OF DATA AND ANALYSIS
The reasoning behind having a wider scale makes a lot of sense, but I
think the gap is too wide.
6. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
I do not see the third point as a problem. You have already identified your targetLebanese Arabic. Though there are many Arabic dialects in neighboring
countries, you seem to suggest that Lebanese dialect is one and that is what you
are investigating. I think the concern should be if your results could be
generalized for all Lebanese Arabic speakers and not all Arabic speakers.
.
7. EXPECTED FINDINGS
I agree.
8. OVERALL COMMENTS
I think your topic of choice is great. It will be interesting to hear what you find out.
LING 620 Proseminar/Thesis Formal Proposal Feedback
NAME OF PRESENTER ……Romy Ghanem
1. TITLE
I think the title of the research is precise and to the point
2. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA
The introduction part is clear; however, it would be better if she provided the
exact vowels and consonants she is working on.
3. AIM/JUSTIFICATION
The justifications that she provides seem to overlap a lot with the limitations of
the study. So I’m a bit confused of what her justifications are.
4. REFERENCES
It looks like most of the researches conducted on this particular area are quite old
except a few of them.
As Romy points out there have been several researches conducted on studying the
sounds (vowels and consonants). Yet, few of them have studied vowels
respectively. Romy is basing her study on Munro’s research.
5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research questions seem answerable and also interesting to be investigated.
6. METHODOLOGY
Romy’s methodology seems very detailed and she seems to know what she wants
from her participants.
7. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Romy indicates three anticipated problems. However I have a question about one
of the limitations she mentions “imbalance in levels of speakers” as she says that
she will study different levels separately, will it still cause a problem in her
research or does she mean that there will be imbalance among the groups?
8. EXPECTED FINDINGS
The finding that Romy is expecting to find are interesting in a way that directs to the
research and attracts curiosity.
9. OVERALL COMMENTS
LING 620 Proseminar/Thesis Formal Proposal Feedback
NAME OF PRESENTER ………Romy…………………………….
1. TITLE
Intelligibility of Voiced and Voiceless Consonants Produced by Lebanese
Arabic Speakers with Respect to Vowel Length
2. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA
Are you examining these speakers speaking English or in Arabic
actually? You might want to clarify this at the beginning.
3. AIM/JUSTIFICATION
Really neat research area considering there hasn’t been much research done on
vowel length but rather just production. That is a very big problem to study
considering that could affect their intelligibility.
4. REFERENCES
Very straightforward, seems like you have your sources straight.
5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What do you deem advanced? Are you taking subjects from “advanced” classes maybe?
6. METHODOLOGY
a. SUBJECTS/SOURCES
I like how you have even numbers for all subjects and judges.
b. MATERIALS/INSTRUMENTS
Thanks for explaining PRATT, I have never heard of it before.
c. PROCEDURE
Very straightforward, keep in mind that native speakers could also
differ in their vowel lengths depending on where they are from in the
United States.
d. TYPE OF DATA AND ANALYSIS
I like how you have a control and experimental group to
compare. Very good idea with not using the Lichert scale. I agree with the 0-100 scale.
7. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
.
You should consider the different American dialects in your
problems/limitations as well, unless you are planning on controlling your native speakers
group to be from one area.
8. EXPECTED FINDINGS
Very straightforward with this. No problems here. I agree with teaching
phonology in classes, this is a problem in many countries, even here where they
try to teach French or Spanish, but yet neglect overall intelligibility of the student
while speaking.
9. OVERALL COMMENTS
I would love to see your results, this is interesting!
LING 620 Proseminar/Thesis Formal Proposal Feedback
NAME OF PRESENTER: Romy
1. TITLE
Good.
2. INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH AREA
This is good. Not terribly complex even with a little phonology background.
3. AIM/JUSTIFICATION
Also good.
4. REFERENCES
These look completely appropriate and very well directed toward your research.
5. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
You need to include “of English” after “speakers” in those. As they’re stated
they’re confusing.
6. METHODOLOGY
a. SUBJECTS/SOURCES
As you say later, the TOEFL score is not directly related to only
phonological production. So I wonder if maybe you could change it to
length of time they’ve studied/spoke English? I think it’s a little less
arbitrary, but could possibly suffer from mis-reporting. That said, the
TOEFL at least provides some structure for selecting students.
b. MATERIALS/INSTRUMENTS
Good.
c. PROCEDURE
I like that you’re giving the raters a lot of granularity for their scores.
Though I wonder if it’s a little too much. Maybe 0-50? I just don’t think
many people would come up with a score of something like 43. What
really makes it different from a 42 or 44? But perhaps that is good, just to
give the raters that freedom.
My other though is perhaps giving the raters some kind of guide would be
helpful. Thinking of myself, I would struggle to know where the
distinctions lie, especially at first. Now, what I think would be most useful
here is some kind of normalization process to familiarize the raters with
what they’re hearing and what the expected score would be. This is
probably not feasible. So what I wonder might be a way to combat this is
to have the raters hear each sample twice, but without their knowledge.
That way, once familiarized with how they feel about scoring, they might
change their score. I feel like these suggestions might be a bit bewildering
and poorly-explained. Talk to me. Guess who.
d. TYPE OF DATA AND ANALYSIS
Fine.
7. ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
I kind of addressed my TOEFL issue above. And obviously, you can’t really do
all of accentedness, and I think this is a nice subset.
8. EXPECTED FINDINGS
The second issue there seems a little weird to me. I guess because of the word “predict”,
seeing as the TOEFL doesn’t “predict” their intelligibility, does it? Perhaps the score
would imply a certain level? I’m not sure.
9. OVERALL COMMENTS
This looks like a whole lot of fun, and like it should be really interesting. Good luck!