Preliminary Findings and Discussion

The observation of journal entries necessitates a sample of writing over an extended period of time. Because of the time constraints imposed by this course structure and the calendar length of this semester, the writing sample evaluated for this research project only provides a brief glimpse into the subject’s self-reflective process.

Critics may charge that a study of this kind lacks validity because of the singularity of its subject. There is no relativity to give this study the dynamic of true scientific exploration. A more scientific study would include a pool of subject journals and seek recurrences and similarities across the sources.

The reliability of the data generated from journal writing can be limited by the fact that the researcher has given the subject specific guidelines for their journal entries. For the purposes of this project, the researcher has suggested that the subject use these journal entries to reflect on her learning process. As a result, this is not a truly open-ended journal for the subject.

Additionally, autobiographical writing is inherently unreliable because of its retrospective nature. There is likely to be some “decay in accuracy over time” (McDonough and McDonough, 2004: 124) as to the information’s factual precision no matter how quickly after the event the writer records their impressions.

In general, journal oriented research is also limited by ethical and confidentiality issues and should be considered seriously by any researcher as they undertake similar studies. As noted earlier, my case study subject has given full consent to review and publish her journal entries for the purposes of this class project. For her protection her name has been changed and any further identifying information linking her to these entries has been omitted.

The two month journal writing stint yielded a total of 36 entries. Though this is evidence that the journal was not maintained on a daily basis, the researcher is encouraged by the fact that the subject was disciplined enough to provide him with a descent research sample.

The subject’s journal entries can be broken down into categories of four topic types. They were social, domestic, personal, or metacognitive reflection. The researcher judged each reflection by their general atmosphere. They were labeled positive, negative, or neutral experiences with regard to the impression that the entries gave to the reader. 44% of the experiences depicted in the journal entries were domestic in nature; 33% was social reflection; and personal and metacognitive reflections made up 11% each. Atmosphere analysis of the journal entries were even more disproportionate with neutral and positive experiences making up 8% and 6% respectively and negative experiences representing an overwhelming majority of the entries with over 61 %. The graphs below represent these findings:

Using the evaluation guidelines detailed above in the “Procedures” section, the researcher discovered the following:

• 
  The top five most frequently used noun phrases were:
  
  • 
    “time⁵” (represented nearly 3.8 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    “word” (represented about 3.3 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    “person/people” (represented 2.4 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    “TV” (represented 2.2 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    tie between “life” and the name of her neighbor/friend (each represented 2.1 % of all content words)
    
• 
  The top 3 most frequently used verb phrases (excluding “be,” “do,” and “have”) were:
  
  • 
    “feel” (represented 3.3 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    “speak” (represented 2.7 % of all content words)
    
  • 
    tie between “think” and “know” (each represented 2.2 % of all content words)
    

With regard to the verb phrases, it is worthwhile to note that the three most frequent verb usages are all related to communication or cognition.

Certain entries stood out more than others for their striking minimalism and strength of emotion. These entries were usually introverted and held an almost poetic gloominess. Here is one such entry in its entirety: “Since I live in America, many times I think about loneliness. I’m not talking just of love. Day after day, I miss all of them: my work, my family, my friends”

Though there are many examples of deictic phrasing to be found in the writing samples it appears that the sophistication of this linguistic feature may still be at an inchoate stage. Certainly, the deixis used therein did not support the hypothesis.

In every case, the quality of lexical choices in each entry represents the overall tenor of the experience. That is, when there were more positive lexical cues contained in the entry the overall feeling of the passage was positive, when the presence of negative lexical cues was higher, the passage was generally considered negative. It may be of some interest to note here that several of the subject’s entries were only peppered with negative lexical choices or only positive lexical choices, in which case the entry’s impression was obvious.

As the subject’s tutor, the researcher was pleased to see that the student was experimenting with some of the vocabulary words introduced during the normal tutoring sessions. New lexical application represented less than one percent of all content words but their presence at all is an encouraging sign from an educator’s standpoint.

The linguistic analysis detailed above implies some interesting details about the subject’s psychology. It seems apparent that the subject is a prime example of an anxiety ridden individual. Whether that anxiety stems from their language experience or from somewhere else is not entirely clear. What is clear is that there is an established preoccupation with ‘words’ and occasional glimpses at the metacognitive thought of the subject that extend throughout the entire journal. These details seem to suggest that the subject could very well be suffering from anxiety stemming from language.

A linguistic examination of a subject’s writing sample, while revealing on a subconscious level, is no solid ground for scientific discovery. It does have some excellent uses in the field of second language learning. Most importantly, case studies such as this one are valuable as question generators and inspiration for further related studies.

As discussed earlier, the nature of this type of research leans toward an ethnographic study of the subject. A study of this kind is simply ineffective in a brief period of time. Real findings may not materialize from journal writing for many months. Though most of the hypotheses proposed for this project were proved wrong, the researcher believes that the results will look far different, say six months from now. The researcher hypothesizes that the continuation of this project will yield more detailed results providing a holistic picture of the subject as she becomes more accustomed to making journal entries and the activity becomes comfortably habitualized.

Additionally, if time were not a consideration, the researcher would not have imposed a specific framework for the subject’s journal and rather let the subject make entries freely. As stated above, an open-ended journal has the propensity to provide a mass amount of unrelated data but from an ethnographic and holistic point of view this can be a profitable source of information, providing a more complete profile of the subject. Also, the fewer constraints the researcher places on the subject’s journal writing, the greater the possibility that the subject will yield valuable insights which they might not have divulged under certain writing restrictions, and thus the greater the wealth of ideas for the researcher to draw from to cater to the student’s individual needs.

The goal here is to meet the needs of this individual. The techniques used and the results that ensue will not be the same for every person. Research of this nature is not generalizable but it generates critical questions and ideas for further study.

References:

Alpert, R., & Haber, R. N., (1960). Anxiety in Academic Achievement Situations. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 78, 207-215.

Canetti, E. (1976) Das Gewissen der Worte. Munich/Vienna: Hanser. Retrieved from Lindberg article September 14, 2004.

Lindberg, I. (2003). Second Language Awareness: What For and For Whom? Lanuage Awareness, 12(3&4), 157 171.

MacIntyre, P. D. (1995, Spring). How Does Anxiety Affect Second Language Learning? A Reply to Sparks and Ganschow. The Modern Language Journal, 79(1), 90 99.

MacIntyre, P. D., Baker, S. B., Clément, Richard, & Donavan, L. A. (2002, Spring). Sex and Age Effects on Willingness to Communicate, Anxiety, Perceived Competence, and L2 Motivation Among Junior High School French Immersion Students. Language Learning, 52(3), 537-564.

McDonough, J., & McDonough, S. (2004). Research Methods for English Language Teachers. London: Arnold Publishers. (Original work published 1997)

Mitchell, R., & Myles, F. (2004). Second Language Learning Theories (2nd ed.). London: Arnold Publishers. (Original work published 1998)

Progoff, I. (1975). At a Journal Workshop. New York: Dialog House Library.

Seliger, H. W. and Shohamy, E. (1989). Second Language Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Call for Papers
Boca accepts article submissions on a rotating basis for their Bi-Annual Publication.
The deadline for Fall Publication consideration is June 1st. The deadline for Spring Publication Consideration is November 1st.

GUIDELINES:

A separate title page should include the author’s name and address. The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript pages to allow for blind review.

Please send an electronic copy (Microsoft Word) and two hard copies of the manuscript to:

Florida Atlantic University

Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Studies

777 Glades Road

~Boca~

Inside this issue:

Gwynne Gonzalez

Patricia MacGregor-Mendoza

Brooke Rains Emley

Kerstin Sondermann

Todd Valdini