Danielle Bond , CLA 2008
Centering Theory as a Measure of Coherence in Preschooler's Same-Sex Pretend Play Discourse
Major
Linguistics and Asian languages and Literatures
Mentor
Amy Sheldon : Speech-Communication
Brief Bio
I like reading and creative writing. I like Korean studies and Korean culture. I like traveling to foreign countries.
Future Plans
I want to graduate on time. I am thinking about a career in the Foreign Service.
Why Research?
I thought it would be a good opportunity to get experience in linguistics, since the field is hard to get into with only a bachelors degree.
What Did I Get from Research?
I learned about different approaches to retest a hypothesis.
How Did I Start?
The project was suggested to me by my advisor. They were looking for students, and I got accepted to the project.
Advice for Another Student
Ask other people about the research who have done it before. Find out what kind of research is right for you. I had a lot of ignorance about the research process that would have been helpful to know. I had no idea what team research was like. Other research I had done before was on my own. Team research can be frustrating because you have to learn to accommodate each others pace and work styles.
Project Description
The research that I did was applying a computational research method in measuring the level of coherence in preschool aged boys and girls. We defined coherence as how long they stayed on topic and their focus in conversation. Previous research had been done on the topic but we wanted to test the hypothesis by applying a different method. We measured coherence line by line, instead of as a whole. This method was more mathematical. The point of the research was to see if this computational method was enough to describe human language and child language.