Recording a conversation, sounds easy. Apparently not.
Women's Language is a hot topic, and I decided to do some research for my coursework, record a conversation between men and women and then women on their own. I did have a few problems arise in this simple sounding task. First of all, who am I going to record? are they going to co-operate or am I going to have to bribe them? It may be easy to talk with your friends, but apparently it becomes different if you want to get the conversation on tape.
After collecting all my guinea pigs, I could finally start getting something done. I asked them to decide on a topic for conversation, this in itself was a debate! Half a hour of discussion about trying to pick a suitable topic, I managed to switch on the recording. Then we had to stop again. We hadn't had a toilet break, you'd think I was trying to record a group of 5 year old! After milk and cookies we began to work. Ten minutes of conversation went by, I left my phone on the settee and beckoned the men to follow me, leaving the women deep in conversation. Safely in the kitchen, the boys carried on their own conversation and I went back to my investigation, and into a completely new topic! A few more minutes went past, another topic came up. It was hard to see how they had managed to go from one to the other but it just seemed to flow. After the ten minutes of women's chat had done I said it was time to stop, they seemed to have other ideas and carried on chatting, i didn't mind, I had my research.
I went to listen to the conversations I had recorded. I couldn't hear a thing! Great, now i gotta do it all again!
Well done! Despite your lack of data you have produced an interesting amusing piece. Think of where you could have added 'observers' paradox' or 'demand characterisitics'. Consider a problem solving activity, as the problem often takes people's attention from the recording. Interesting that your women had moved topic - this is what Jennifer Coates found as well.
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