Department: Sociology, Language & Linguistic Sciences

Project Leads: Merran Toerien (Sociology) and Kobin Kendrick (Language & Linguistic Sciences)

Summary

This project aims to create a diverse corpus of audio and video recordings to support learning and teaching at York, particularly in conversation analysis (CA). York is internationally renowned for CA, teaching it at all levels across Sociology and Language & Linguistic Science. The 'classic corpus,' used widely in learning and teaching CA, is outdated and lacks diversity, featuring mainly white, middle-aged participants speaking on landlines in the 1980s. In partnership with 10 undergraduates, we will create YorTalk: a dataset of everyday conversations accessible to anyone at York, including a variety of ages, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, and (dis)ability profiles. These recordings will replace existing materials in modules and assessments to foster inclusivity, challenge biases, and increase engagement by being more reflective of York's increasingly diverse student body.