Overall, in the pandemic you just do the best you can. I think we have to just do the best we can and I’m really hoping that people have become so used to interacting on Zoom or Google Hangouts or whatever, that they’ll just talk like they normally talk, but that bears testing later on.
Prof. Sali A. Tagliamonte
Okay, so the first question is: What data were you collecting or planning to collect before the pandemic started, and how have your plans changed?
Well, that’s a good question. I was planning to collect data from Toronto, from people across the age ranges, beginning with teenagers right through to octogenarians. The original [Toronto English Archive] corpus was collected in 2003, 2004. And then this corpus is to follow on from that, nearly 20 years later, and be a mirror corpus going down into the teenagers, as we did before, but this time it’s gonna be a whole new body of materials from people who weren’t born 20 years ago. Yeah, so that was the plan.
So, how have things changed? Have you postponed it or something else?
As soon as we went into lockdown in March, we did try. We did a couple of Zoom interviews at that time, but according to my interviewers, they just weren’t the same. They were not of the same stylistic or vernacular quality and we just said, “Forget it!” And, so I completely stopped all data collection. But that’s not the only project I have. I also spend a lot of my time collecting corpora from all over Ontario, particularly small, rural locations in places all over the North. So, that had to stop, too. We just stopped everything. Now, that’s not the end of the story but that’s what we did in March.
You’re waiting to find out where things go before making new plans?
Well, what I did was I pivoted to transcribing everything that had never been transcribed before. We had a lot of legacy materials that we had gained access to because people gave it to us, or we had only minimally transcribed certain samples from certain places and so we did a complete sweep. We transcribed everything we could transcribe. So all the money I would have spent, you know, going out into the streets for transportation costs and field trips, all went to hiring more people, giving students jobs, and they transcribed their hearts out from March through to August. But then what happened was: we transcribed everything. We had this mega amount of new material, which is fantastic for us to do studies, but you cannot keep an army of undergraduate research assistants busy if you don’t have stuff for them to transcribe.
So then we had a bit of a crisis and a big lab meeting. We ran out of data to transcribe and then, “Okay, now what?” And so I thought, “People have had 7 months to get used to Zoom meetings. Everybody has been in constant Zoom meetings for the past 7 months — particularly teenagers, who have been going to school remotely. So why don’t we just interview the students using Zoom or Google Hangouts, which is where they all are anyway?” It doesn’t produce an overwhelming amount of material. We set up interviews, [the students] don’t reply to email. We go to the interviews, they sleep in. We get to the interviews, they bring a friend, which means that you don’t get as much data as you would normally get. They only have an attention span of about an hour. So the data is precious. We cannot, at this point, evaluate the quality of that data. We’ll only know after the fact. But at least we’re getting something. And the kids at that age, they just talk to you like they would talk to you, I think. At least the words that are coming through and the slang terminology and the ways of speaking seem to be what you would expect from teenagers. So that’s one project. But it’s hard and it’s very costly.
In terms of the Ontario Dialects Project, we delved deep into the coffers of old recordings that we had received from the original Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley from Ian Pringle at Carleton [University]. I happened to notice, or my postdoc Bridget Jankowski noticed, that there were a couple of places that we had not even ventured into. One of those places was Renfrew, Ontario, and the other place was Kazabazua, Quebec. As soon as I heard those two names, I thought “Yes, we’re going to transcribe that material” One reason is that, in the deepest recesses of my brain, I knew that I knew someone from Renfrew. So I thought, “Maybe I’ll be able to create a contact there and do something.’ The other reason was Kazabazua happens to be near an English enclave in the middle of rural Quebec that I know very well. I thought “Okay, well, even if we get only a modest amount of material, it’s going to be interesting because those are Anglophones in the middle of rural Quebec.” So for those two reasons, we started transcribing that material.
I think young researchers who want to study the way people talk are going to have to find other ways to do it that aren’t sitting down and having a conversation on someone’s veranda.
Prof. Sali A. Tagliamonte
Now, here comes the really interesting part, doing data collection in times of COVID. I remembered a very old friend of mine from when I was doing my PhD in Ottawa, who was from Renfrew, Ontario. Like, how many people are from Renfrew, Ontario? Not many. So, I contacted him through Facebook, as one does. And, you know, he agreed to meet with me. We got together on Zoom, had a lovely chat, and I discovered that, sure enough, he still has a brother living in Renfrew, Ontario. [The brother and I] got together on the weekend [via Zoom], and I’m hoping that he will be like the Lucy or the Celeste S. of Labov’s Philadelphia studies, that he’ll be the kingpin that will help us do some Zoom interviews from Renfrew.
Overall, in the pandemic you just do the best you can. I think we have to just do the best we can and I’m really hoping that people have become so used to interacting on Zoom or Google Hangouts or whatever, that they’ll just talk like they normally talk, but that bears testing later on.
Well, that leads to my next question. One of the goals of sociolinguistic research is to capture the vernacular, naturalistic or unmonitored speech and, when you and your students collect data, what are some of the strategies that you guys use to make sure that you capture the vernacular?
Well, you’ve got to create rapport, no matter where you are. So, if it’s in a person-to-person interview in someone’s living room or a bar or outside on their lawn furniture or in a Zoom call, you’re going to have to do everything in your power to create rapport. So, on a Zoom call, don’t be a deadpan talking head, for goodness sakes. Use all your skills, right? Use all your skills. All you’re going have is that person’s discussion with you and their talking head, so you’re going to have to be very in tune with how they’re speaking and find some point of commonality, where you have something that you share. But those are the same things we always have done, it’s just that now we’re going to have to work harder at it. So, how do you find commonality between yourself and a teenager if you happen to be a fortysomething person working in my lab? It just so happened that when Bridget Jankowski interviewed some young man, age 17, from the high school, that they discovered that he liked cars and the mechanics of cars and little did I know but Bridget’s father was a mechanic, so they talked cars the whole time and Bridget was very thankful that she had something in common with that young man. What did I have in common with this guy from Renfrew who’s the brother of my friend? Uh, I’m a Northerner and he loves the North and he loves fourwheeling and he loves hunting and fishing and seeing animals, and so I just did my Northern Ontario thing, because that’s where I’m from and I can do it. So my point is: if you’re going to find the vernacular, the best way to do it is to find something in common with the person you’re talking to and then then it’s up to your skills as an interviewer.
I know that when you were collecting the original Toronto English Archive, one of the questions that everybody got asked was about the [2003 Toronto] blackouts, which had happened just immediately prior to your collection. Do you think that the pandemic will become like the new blackout question, when you start?
I don’t know. Everybody’s talking about the COVID-19 situation, so no matter who you talk to, they want to talk about case counts, etc., but they don’t really wanna talk about their personal experience. So, to tell you the truth, I’m avoiding any discussion of COVID-19. I’m going to talk about the same things we always talk about. Obviously if they wanna talk about the COVID-19 situation, I will talk about it, but I’d rather ask them about their lives, their stories, their feelings, their memories.
Is that because COVID-19 is a sensitive topic? Or because it could get you to personal medical issues? Or is it that the topic itself is, because it has to do with something that’s in the news or medical, people might speak a little bit more formally?
I just think it’s boring to tell you the truth. Right? I don’t know about you, but every time someone starts talking about COVID-19, it’s just a boring conversation. Talking about COVID-19 really just involves a lot of soapbox [style] and a lot of reporting and hearsay, and all kinds of misinformation. So why not ask people about other stuff? I’m also hoping, by trying to initiate this kind of data collection, that people will be really welcome to a breath of fresh air. Saying to them, “I don’t care about COVID-19, I just want talk to you and ask how are you doing, and what are you up to, and tell me about your history, your past, the things you like to do.”
What are your thoughts on collecting data through Zoom? And being able to get in touch with or get data from older people? Do you think that there’s a challenge there?
Yeah, I do. A big challenge. And so that’s why I’m hoping I can train onsite locals to work with them on an iPad or a recorder or a phone or whatever they have. Because obviously there’s going to be some savvy octogenarians, or older, that can manage Zoom meetings becasue it’s the new rage, but you wouldn’t want to focus specifically on only those elderly people who can use Zoom. You want to reach the other people, too. And I’m hoping that that’s going to be an advantage. People have been so cooped up that they’re going to be willing to talk to people.
What about social distancing and interviewing people in vulnerable sectors? There must be a lot of discussion beforehand about how to stay safe, or negotiation with the ethics board about that type of interaction.
I haven’t had any experience with that and I think I would be reluctant to do anything like that. What I’m talking about is people who are in their own homes and have relatives or family members that already see them. And we’re talking about rural areas in Ontario that are not in the same situation as we are in Toronto.
So it’s important to foster and rely on getting those community contacts who are able to interview people who are in their circle already.
Yes. And as I say, I think that’s the same thing I would do normally. I typically go on a field trip in May every year. And I spend upwards of a year, before I even go to that community, negotiating with local partners, people, setting things up. It’s a critical part of doing community based research.
My last question is on a slightly different topic. You’ve done some research on different kinds of computer-mediated communication and talked about how computer-mediated conversation exists on a spectrum between speech and writing. Do you think that people’s minds will be a little bit changed now about what constitutes good data? Now that everybody’s collecting more forms of computer-mediated conversation. Not just written but also oral. Do you think that the older researchers in our discipline will be more accepting of saying a Zoom call recording is something comparable to what they did when they went into people’s homes with a tape recorder?
Well, let’s find out. I think young researchers who want to study the way people talk are going to have to find other ways to do it that aren’t sitting down and having a conversation on someone’s veranda. And, you know, if that happens to be a Zoom conversation or any other type of conversation, so be it. The important part is that it’s conversation, you know, like we’re doing right now. We’re sitting here and we’re face to face and we’re talking to each other. That’s going have to be okay for now. And, certainly there will come a time when we can go back and interview those people again and then we have this brilliant comparison that we can make.
Now that people have had 7 months of dealing with COVID-19 and Zooming it up day in and day out the conversation is becoming natural. I mean, do I sound any differently than I do when I normally have talked to you in a one-on-one situation in my office? I don’t think so. But that’s an empirical question. Do I think that people should be more accepting of these kinds of data sources? Yeah, absolutely. Doing this kind of data collection is a heck of a lot better than looking at tweets or, you know, online communications that are fluid and difficult to pin down and we don’t know who the people are. At least if you’re collecting data by Zoom or Google Hangouts or whatever, we can do it in the same ways we have traditionally done, knowing the metadata well, knowing the people well. And then let’s see what kind of difference that makes in the long run.
I think that maybe in the past, people who used video conferencing were a more select group of people and didn’t do it all the time. But I guess now, everybody’s doing it for their job, everybody’s doing it every day. You’re doing it with people in your family, you’re doing it with people at work. So it’s not just a work thing, or not just a family thing. It’s part of how you communicate with people so, I mean, for the last 7 months Zoom meetings are the vernacular.
I agree. And the more people get used to it, the more norms will become established.