What’s So Special About The Circus? (And Who Says So) – Katharine Kavanagh
For an enlarged version, click on the poster or download the file:
Feedback questions:
1. I am going to need to discuss the fact that I am comparing corpora of written texts with one of spoken texts. At the moment I feel this is justified because the other dimensions of the text are matched (most importantly in this case, theme and purpose*), and because I am primarily interested in comparing the targets of evaluation rather than the way the evaluation is constructed. However, I’d like to know what the major concerns are that other people have about such an approach?
2. Circus has a powerful, pervasive and long-established image in popular consciousness which eclipses many of the realities that have developed within the circus field over the last half a century. While this is the underlying motivation of the whole study, I wonder how much background detail I need to share with the reader about what the circus field looks like in the 21st century, versus how much I should allow the contemporary picture to emerge through later discussion of the data?
*I have misplaced my reference… bonus points for anyone who can point me in the direction of who talks about comparative corpora needing to be identical in all but one dimension?!*