Linguistic survey on ubuntuforums.org

[moxfyre]

Hi everybody,

I'm currently writing my thesis in linguistics, on the perception of language use in online communities. Being a long-time Ubuntu user myself, I decided to base my empirical research on the huge and active community that ubuntuforums.org represents.

...

More background

My name is Gregor, I'm from Germany, where I study English Linguistics at Bonn University (http://www.linguistics.uni-bonn.de/). You can find my - currently inactive - blog here: http://blog.openinformation.org/index-en.html

I've presented this project to the ubuntuforums.org council to make sure that it is in accordance with the Code of Conduct and in general acceptable for the ubuntuforums.org community. Guys, thanks for your feedback and support!

If you have any questions, just write a post in this thread and ask - I'll be happy to respond.

Thanks a lot for your interest and participation!
Gregor

Very cool! I have a Bachelor's Degree in linguistics as well, and have always been interested in this kind of sociolinguistic research.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

[JDShu]

By the way, this is probably unimportant to the study, but in the "Mother Tongue" section, why did you put "Traditional Chinese?" I found it a little confusing.

Traditional Chinese is a form of written Chinese as opposed to Simplified Chinese. Mother tongue implies a spoken language which in China is quite diverse, although you can get away with just saying "Chinese". If you wanted to be more specific, you could say Chinese(Mandarin), Chinese(Cantonese), and Chinese(Other), which is quite common. "Traditional Chinese" doesn't really make sense.

[sanderella]

Hope to see your results and interpretation published.

[aguafuertes]

nice survey, i enojoyed filling it up, good luck with your work ^^

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Thanks

Traditional Chinese is a form of written Chinese as opposed to Simplified Chinese. Mother tongue implies a spoken language which in China is quite diverse, although you can get away with just saying "Chinese". If you wanted to be more specific, you could say Chinese(Mandarin), Chinese(Cantonese), and Chinese(Other), which is quite common. "Traditional Chinese" doesn't really make sense.

Thanks for the explanation, I did not know that. I took the language list from a python module that seemed fairly comprehensive to me - but I already added Malayalam to the list, as one participant was missing it.

So far there were already two participants that chose "Traditional Chinese" as their mother tongue - that's why I probably won't change the options now, with the survey running until the end of September.

Hope to see your results and interpretation published

I will post any updates on this thread

[texpat]

Hi,

I just took your survey, too.

Btw, I spent a few semesters at Bonn uni. But that was in another life. I wonder what's become of that city after everyone (exaggeration intended ) moved off to Berlin.

Good luck and all the best.

[dagoth_pie]

Thanks! My summary would be more like "we are all different", but I know what you mean

Yes, you're 100% unique, just like everyone else...


Did the survey, looked interesting, right afterwards, I thought about how out of place my "meatworker" occupation will look in with all the IT and Admin staff...

[Shibblet]

I did the survey and gave an opinion on every single question.

It really made me think about the way I post.

Good survey!

[aguafuertes]

So, after some days with the flu I'm finally getting back on track.

First of all, the obligatory update of the demographic stats: http://blog.openinformation.org/atti...de-static.html

There are now 266 completely filled out surveys I plan to run the survey until the end of September, so maybe there will be even 300 or more complete surveys by then, which would be even more awesome!

So if you are interested, you can still participate:

Survey: http://attitude.openinformation.org/survey/start/
Screencast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-T64MT5Gp8

Just follow the link, mark and comment the single posts and complete the survey - that's all

Thanks for your help!

[aguafuertes]

I wonder what's become of that city after everyone (exaggeration intended) moved off to Berlin.

Hehe, well, they managed to strike some sweet deals back then - there are still parts of the public administration around, the former state-owned companies DP-DHL (Deutsche Post and DHL) and Deutsche Telekom have their headquarters here, and a lot of money has flown in a "structural compensation fund". Politics... Really curious if you'd notice the difference, actually.

I thought about how out of place my "meatworker" occupation will look in with all the IT and Admin staff..

I looked at the stats, but participant's occupations are so diverse that I had to use the browser search - so not really out of place, I'm afraid

It really made me think about the way I post. Good survey!

Thanks! It's the same for me, all the responses and especially the comments make me think how many different views and reasonings there are on exactly the same situation.

I hope to come up with a good way to show something of that diversity in perception online.

[Irihapeti]

Thanks! It's the same for me, all the responses and especially the comments make me think how many different views and reasonings there are on exactly the same situation.

I hope to come up with a good way to show something of that diversity in perception online.

I find it fascinating how so many people find it "obvious" what another poster meant, and start an argument based on that certainty. They may be close to the mark about the original poster's meaning, or they may be miles off. So often it doesn't even cross their minds that they might be wrong. (Speaking from past personal experience here. )

I've learned that not jumping to conclusions about other people's motives, and being more thoughtful about how I communicate, have made life a lot more fun than it used to be. Fewer angry people around, for one thing

That may not be the original reason why you did this research, but it looks as though some other people might be taking this message from it. Which sounds like a wonderful side-effect to me.