The Final Observation Paper

Topic due on or before: 22^nd July

Due on or before: 3^rd August 2005

Length: Minimum 5 pages, double spaced, excluding references, tables etc.

I expect that in the final observation paper you do a little fieldwork. In the past, the papers I really liked and gave good grades to, were about students’ observations of simple but interesting linguistic phenomena around her/his world.

Here are the topics of some of the papers that my students wrote last semester, which I really liked:

1. Errors committed by a four year old child while speaking English. In this paper the student observed her own daughter’s language and tried to account for the mistakes made by her
2. Portuguese Learners’ Problem while Learning to Speak English. In this paper the student, who is a native speaker of Portuguese described how the Phonological system of Portuguese posed problems while learning English.
3. The use of ‘Shit’ among students in fret houses. In this paper the student tried to see under what conditions students use the word ‘shit’ to curse.

These are only some of the many topics that I liked.

It is necessary that before you choose your topic, we discuss about it.