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Extended Essays: Studies in Language Sample Topics and Research Questions
Students have, since the May 2013 examination session, had the opportunity to submit Extended Essays in Group 1, Category 3: Studies in Language.
It is very important that students submitting essays in this category have a particular focus on language, and through the consideration of a text or texts aim to do some kind of meaningful textual analysis. Category 3 Extended Essays should not be of a general cultural nature. Sociolinguistic research is apposite, but only when the research methodology involves the scrutiny of a text or texts.
Thus, for example, a student intent on writing about ‘the gun debate’ in the United States need not be discouraged. However, the gun debate is a social and political issue; it is not, per se, a linguistic issue. The student, in this example, needs to consider how the issue of guns in American society is expressed in a text or texts. For example, the student could consider the rhetorical strategies employed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) in its (contemporary) press releases. Doing this kind of Extended Essay involves developing an appreciation of a specific historically and culturally situated issue, including the role of the media. It also requires the student to develop an appreciation of the language of press releases, and to show awareness of rhetorical structures more generally. Ultimately, the Extended Essay is only about the gun debate to the extent that this establishes the idiom for engaging in linguistic research. Language may not be separated from its social context, many may claim, but language, here, is the focus for the research essay, not culture.
Some further examples for potential essays are shown below. Admittedly, the suggestions may benefit from refined focus, and their needs to be an endeavour to delimit the primary textual source material (see this essay as an example). Nevertheless, students (and teachers) can have a sense of some of the potential areas in which research may be conducted.
Sample Topics and Research Questions
Examples of Extended Essay Topics in Group 1, Category 3 (in English)
- Topic: language varieties, code-switching and code-mixing
Research question: What social and cultural factors influence the choice to speak English or not to speak English in Quebec, Canada?
- Topic: English as a global language; historical language studies
Research question: What historical and social factors influence the ways in which Singaporean English is systematically different from Standard British English?
- Topic: language, media, culture, and taboo
Research question: How are death notices similar and different in Australian and Singaporean newspapers?
- Topic: language and belief
Research question: How do believers and non-believers signal their position through language use?
- Topic: language, media, gender, and power
Research question: How is male and female speech portrayed in the television drama Mad Men?
- Topic: language, media, gender, and power
Research question: How are women represented in Diva (magazine) and in Men’s Health (magazine)?
- Topic: language, media, ethnicity, and power
Research question: How are ethnic minority groups represented in (the English edition)Daily Mail?
- Topic: language, identity, and computer-mediated communication
Research question: How do people use language to construct identities on Facebook (or in Second Life)?
- Topic: language and computer-mediated communication
Research question: How do readers recognize inauthenticity in email phishing spam?
- Topic: language, age, and computer-mediated communication
Research question: How and why do different generations use language differently in email correspondence?
- Topic: language, gaming, and computer-mediated communication
Research question: In Minecraft, which features of language are determined by the activity, and which by the fact that the game is played on-line?
- Topic: media, language, ideology, and power
Research question: How are environmental issues represented in The Washington Post and New Internationalist (magazine)?
- Topic: language, media, and persuasion
Research question: What rhetorical and stylistic strategies do estate agents use to persuade their readers in Singapore and the USA?
- Topic: language, newspapers, culture and society
Research question: How similar and different was the reporting of school shootings in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, and Columbine High School in the USA in 1999?
- Topic: language, power, language communities
To what extent do the communicative practices of Aboriginal Australians disempower them in cross-cultural interactions with white Australians?
- Topic: language, power, nation and society
How is English used as a gatekeeping language to restrict access to employment in Canada?
- Topic: language, media, persuasion, politics
How did political parties use slogans in attempting to influence the electorate in the British General Election of 2010?
- Topic: language, media, sport
How does the language of radio football commentary differ from the language of television football commentary?
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