S ENG 04

Structure of English

Guidelines for the Capstone Project

Deadline: December 19, 2019

1. The three classes will work hand-in-hand in building a corpora for this capstone project.
Please refer to the attachment for the corpus assignments.

2. Each student will be working on a different grammatical aspect based on the corpus
assigned.

3. Since there are three classes, each genre is expected to have a 30,000-word corpus that
the student will use in investigating the assigned grammatical aspect.

4. The following can be done using the corpora:

a. Count the number of times your chosen grammar feature occurs, and for each
text work out a ration between this and some related feature. If you are working
on determiners, you could compare the frequency of a and the)

b. Explain why this feature is used each time it occurs.

c. Sub-classify the feature.

d. Look at how the speaker’s or writer’s tone or message would be affected if other
choices had been made.

e. Identify and account for any non-standard features.

f. Compare the occurrence of this grammar feature between two texts, and account
for any differences (e.g. formal vs. informal; spoken vs. written)
 Researching Language
Capstone Project – S ENG 04
2nd Term, AY 2019-2020

5. The research report will have the following parts:

a. Introduction – This will describe the grammar feature including a few researches
done in this specific grammatical aspect.

b. Methodology – Describe how the data was mined using AntConc.

c. Results – Present the data and interpret them objectively based on the figures.

d. Discussion – Discuss implications of the data presented.

e. References - List down the sources in APA (6th Edition) format.

f. Appendix – Attach AntConc relevant screenshots, Table of Frequency Counts,

Sample sentences, etc.

6. The Capstone project will be completed in three stages:

a. Presentation of initial results to the class using PowerPoint

b. Drafting of the Research Report

c. Consultation of the Results and Discussion

d. Compilation of results

e. Submission of Capstone Project