Sample Data

Sample Data

This data was collected by Judith Baxter from an experiment which am I am going to recreate for my investigation but with some changes. Her experiment involved having two separate groups, a girls group and a boys group and then gave them both the same stimulus which was a task involving ordering objects by usefulness if they were all you had and you were stranded on a desert island. The speakers in Baxter’s study were between the ages of 14-15 and at first I was thinking of doing a younger year group but I think participants of the age range she used would give significant data however the risk of the observer’s paradox would be greater.

Group A

S: wouldn’t you need the sunglasses?

C: yeah, that’s what I think

S: because it would be really hot and protect yourself from the sun and you’d be able to see more

G: yeah, but if you’re trying to live, does it matter [whether you can see?

C: [you could go blind

G: exactly, but if you’re trying to survive, does it really matter?

C: (sounding irritated) I wouldn’t [want to go blind

S: [it does, because if you were blind you wouldn’t be able to see what you were doing and you would end up dying anyway. You’d have less chance of surviving anyway.

G: yeah, but you’re not likely to go blind unless you’re looking right up into the sun.

Group B

C: (pointing) right, what did you put?

M: compass

C: (pointing) what did you put?

T: I put sunglasses

C: right, I put the parachute (gives long explanation for choosing it)

Other voices: mirror, mirror… the torch

C: and you could use a gun, couldn’t you? You could shoot-

H: you could shoot the pilot

C: right. So has anyone changed their mind? (pointing) What do you think?

H: I say compass

T: I say sunglasses are quite important because you have to be able to see what it says on the compass for a start (laughter from the group)

H: you could just go like that (mimes shading eyes) shut your eyes for a moment

C: right. You go (pointing) Say why you thought the first aid kit.

Judith Baxter just looked to see which of the groups cooperated and which competed more. From the results I get in my experiment I intend to look at all the aspects of Deborah Tannen’s Difference Pairs that include cooperative and competitive speech. From Baxter’s data it could be said that Group B shows more status because speaker C is directing everyone in the group, however it could be argued that he is not trying to gain status but is trying to be supportive and that Group A is trying to establish status because all the speakers within that group are arguing and being competitive in order to gain status. Speaker C in Group B seems to be giving orders to the others which is common in male conversation according to Tannen. Group A seems to have the most conflict because in their conversation they seem to overlap competitively the most whilst in Group B the speaker C who had the most air time was only interrupted once. Contrastingly, Group B seems to comprise more because the dominant speaker seems to allow everyone to state their opinion and reasoning behind it and then allow them to change their mind after hearing what everyone else had to say.

I am hoping to do a mini investigation myself soon in order to find out whether my investigation idea will work and give me good evidence to analyse for my coursework and whether there are any pitfalls I need to fix before I do the real experiment.