The article, “The Impact of Language Variety and Expertise on Perceptions of Online Political Discussions” was published in 2007 by Tan, Swee, Lim, Detenber, & Alsagoff, that looks at investigating the impacts of two status cues, language style and source expertise. The reference points of these cues will be on the views of people who mainly engage and participate in discussions conducted in online platforms. As such, the researchers will want to learn more of these people’s motivations and intentions and thus, they are forced to use “Singlish” which is Singapore’s colloquial English. The manipulation of the language also meant that the authors were forced to apply the same in the discussion issue. The article is a typical research paper that states with an introduction, followed by a literature review, and the other parts such as methodology, research design, results, and discussion. Instead of the conclusion, the article raises issues that limited the study and future recommendations that need to be considered by researchers. In the literature review section of the article, the authors have managed to use different themes in guiding the reader through understanding the topic fully. The participants of the study were undergraduate students, where 42 comprised male students and 38 were female students. In the results section of the study, the authors managed to bring into play the Internet by looking at the theories used in computer mediated communication and linguistics study.
What is a literature review and what does it do?
A literature review is a scholarly paper that surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources with relevant information on particular issues, theory, and areas of research. This paper seeks to discuss information of previously published works by different authors in relation to a given topic or subject under study. As such, it provides a summary, description and even critical evaluation of works under investigation. The review of literature can be a simple summary of different sources or an organizational pattern where the author(s) uses both summary and synthesis in their display. The summary component will look at giving a recap of the important information provided by the source. Whereas, the synthesis will try to reshuffle or re-organize the information in such a way that it will inform readers on the direction and plan of the investigation.
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In the article “The Impact of Language Variety and Expertise on Perceptions of Online Political Discussions,” the authors managed to capture all this to the readers. As such, we can say that literature review is important as it provides the reader with an overview of research in a specific area. By so doing, the review has managed to make sense of any research body and thus, presents an analysis of important literature available on a given study area. Hence, the reader is not forced to access each of the individual research report included in the review, but rather shows how these sources fit within the larger study of the research. By this we mean that the review describes the relationship of the different works used in the investigation by highlighting the most relevant information. Moreover, we can say that literature review is important because it reveals existing literature gaps and thus, new ways are identified that help in interpretation of prior research.
What terms are defined ?
In understanding the study, the research has managed to define several important terms. Anonymity is the first term defined by Scott (as cited in Tan et. al, 2007, para. 2) that helps readers not confuse those speakers ascribed to using pseudonymous identities. In Scott’s definition, he manages to attest to the fact that the source of the message delivered by the communicator is “unknown and unspecified.” The authors managed to also cite the definition of social presence theory as described by Short, Williams & Christie (as cited in Tan et. al, 2007) as, “ the feeling that interlocutors are sharing the same communicative space” (para. 4). The other case of defining terms comes in where Hoffman’s conceptualization of expertise is under scrutiny because he asserts that it is important to differentiate an expert from a novice. According to Hoffman’s proposition, practice is a form of experience that manages to attain skills that loses their quality of being effortful, conscious, linear, and deliberate. Therefore, it manages to camouflage itself and takes on the quality of attaining automatic pattern recognition. Furthermore, he continues to point out that the experts possess principled understanding, conceptualization, and articulation of the area under study (as cited in Tuan et. al, 2007, para. 18). The last definition is that of Ferguson’s diglossia (as cited in Tuan et. al, 2007, para. 15) where he points out the two different languages H (Standard English) and L (Singlish). According to Ferguson, H is more superior to L and it is also more beautiful and logical.
How many hypotheses are there?
In the article, the authors have used four different hypotheses to bring out the discussion by displaying them under themes for ease of understanding. The first is under the subject, ‘Language and Linguistic Style’ while the second is under the ‘Source Expertise’ theme, where both look at the expectations of their study. The last third and fourth hypotheses are found under the theme called, ‘Status Cues and Participation in Online Discussions’ that looks at capturing the perspectives of their subjects. In the end, a research question is reconstructed to bring out the willingness of their participants who have a desire to diversify their language to enable them have an expanded view of the world.
Where does the Research Methodology appear in the study?
In the study, the research methodology comes immediately after the literature review section and applies the quasi-experimental research method to obtain data. As such, the research methodology aims at bringing out the differences in their participants’ outcomes. Moreover, the method will gain to understand the subject matter of the topic under scrutiny. In this kind of methodology, random assignment is missing but in the case of the article, a mixed design was employed where arguments were of two between-subjects factors and one within-subject factor. These designs were fully crossed and yielded a 2*2 factorial design effect. Randomization was applied and a balance of gender was considered in both conditions under study. The experiment was done in two phases where the both phases applied the use of questionnaires to obtain information.
How many cases or subjects were there in the study?
The subjects under study used the 2*2 between-subjects factorial design while the discussion managed to manipulate the issue to within-subjects variable. The variables were five general dependent variables and their indices were collected from seven-point, Likert type measure. The credibility of the source was measured using McCroskey’s 12-item Source Credibility Scale (Tan et. al., 2007).
How many hypotheses were supported by the data?
The article shows that all the hypotheses were supported by the data but very limited support has been ascribed to the significant effects if status cues on perceptions and participation. All this was possible through the use of a repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), where issue became the repeated measure, language and expertise.
Where are the "conclusions" given in the research paper?
The conclusion is that cues signaling expertise continue to influence participation and discussion among users is also seen to influence other participant’s decision. Nonetheless, in some topics the effects of these variables are seen to be stronger. Furthermore, there are gaps in this area of study and thus, further research needs to be conducted in order to come up with conclusive, reliable and valid information pertaining to this study area (Velasquez, 2012).
The design of the study was professionally done in a manner that shows the researchers understanding of the subject matter. As such, the research is easy to follow and gives the reader a clear picture of what the researchers obtained from conducting the research.
References
Tan, K. W., Swee, D., Lim, C., Detenber, B. H., & Alsagoff, L. (2007). The impact of language
variety and expertise on perceptions of online political discussions. Journal of Computer-
Mediated Communication , 13 (1), 76-99.
Velasquez, A. (2012). Social media and online political discussion: The effect of cues and
informational cascades on participation in online political communities. New Media &
Society , 14 (8), 1286-1303.
