Methodology

The sources used in my language investigation were collected from my household and although some of them are addressed to myself, some are also addressed to family members who are residents at the same address. This raises an ethical issue of confidentiality which I addressed by gaining informed consent from the person the letter belonged to. I constructed a letter that explained how I would be using the letter to see how power was being asserted with the language construction.  Furthermore, I explained how their identity would be kept private and confidential as I would be blacking out any personal details that could lead to their identity or personal information being revealed. To some extent I could not completely ensure confidentiality as my investigation is based on letters coming to my household which creates a direct link to some of the letters being about my family members who live in the house. However, so that this wasn’t an issue I explicitly explained in my letter that it would be made clear that the letters would be referred to as coming from my house but that the use would only be “for academic purposes”.  To ensure my findings would be reliable, I collected all of my letters over a 12 month period. This would widen my data pool and ensure the letters I was collecting were a true representation of letters coming into my household. This also improves the reliability of my data as it shows it is constant over time and not just a snap shot which makes it valid.