📘 Aging Discourse Markers — R Visualization Project

This repository showcases a compact data-analysis and visualization project exploring how Discourse Markers (DM) and Not DM are distributed across age groups (Youth, Adults, Seniors). I created this project as part of a broader linguistic study, and I’m using the repo to demonstrate my skills in:

• R programming
• Data wrangling (tidyverse)
• Statistical visualization (ggplot2)
• Reproducible project structure
• Working with linguistic/categorical data

It serves both as a component of my linguistic research and as a portfolio sample of my analytical workflow.

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🧠 Project Overview

The project includes:

• A structured dataset of coded discourse-marker functions
• Clean, reproducible R scripts
• Three publication-style figures
• A documented workflow suitable for academic or applied linguistic settings

The focus is on:

• Comparing DM vs Not DM across age groups
• Identifying functional categories most used by each group
• Producing clear and interpretable visual insights

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📁 Repository Structure

aging-discourse-markers/
│
├─ data/
│   └─ dm_coding_template.xlsx          # template for DM/Not DM coding
│
├─ scripts/
│   └─ dm_notdm_agegroup_plots.R        # generates all figures
│
├─ figures/
│   ├─ figure1_dm_vs_notdm.png
│   ├─ figure2_dm_functions_age.png
│   └─ figure3_notdm_functions_age.png
│
└─ Aging Discourse Markers.Rproj        # RStudio project file

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📊 Visual Outputs

1. DM vs Not DM by Age Group

100% stacked bar chart comparing marker distribution across age groups.

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2. Most Frequent DM Functions

Top functional categories of discourse markers used by each age group.

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3. Most Frequent Not DM Functions

Functional categories for Non-DM items across age groups.

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🔧 Technical Stack

• R (tidyverse, ggplot2, scales)
• Data manipulation: pivoting, factor reordering, category harmonization
• Visual design: custom themes, color palettes, percentage scaling
• Reproducibility: RStudio project structure, clean script separation

This demonstrates my ability to:

• Build small but robust analytical pipelines
• Work with linguistic feature coding
• Produce publication-ready visualizations
• Organize projects cleanly for collaboration or peer review

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🚀 Reproducing the Figures

Open the project:

Aging Discourse Markers.Rproj

Run the script:

scripts/dm_notdm_agegroup_plots.R

The figures will regenerate inside figures/.

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✍️ About This Project

This analysis was originally prepared for one of my university term papers on language and aging, but I’ve structured and published it here as a portfolio-friendly demonstration of my:

• Linguistic data analysis abilities
• Visualization design
• R workflow discipline
• Academic research tooling

If you’d like to see more of my work, feel free to reach out or explore other repositories.