Sociolinguistic Significance of Quasi-Isolated Island Communities

小行星9319577 摘要 该项目考察了位于北卡罗来纳州外滩群岛的一系列东南沿海岛屿社区的社会语言学意义。正在研究四个主要研究地点和几个不同的次级地点。奥克拉科克是一个外班克斯岛社区，于18世纪初定居，至今仍无法通过汽车进入，被选为详细的社会语言学和民族志研究。这种多样性的讲话相比，其他两个外银行社区，现在可以通过汽车，哈克斯岛和哈特拉斯，以及一个连续的大陆沿海社区，博福特，北卡罗来纳州。反过来，将来自这些地点的数据与以前从其他类型的历史上孤立的地区收集的数据进行比较，包括阿巴拉契亚山脉和奥扎克山脉，以及马里兰州海岸外史密斯岛的东海岸方言地区。数据来源包括一组在四个主要方言区进行的跨代社会语言学访谈，一组以前收集的口述历史访谈，一组与其他历史孤立情况下的社会语言学研究有关的访谈，以及一套有限的早期书面历史记录，反映了1700年和1800年的外滩品种。 特定的社会历史环境结合起来，创造了原型的准孤立的岛屿社区，使其成为理想的基于实验的检查有关方言接触，同化和变化的一般社会语言学原则。本研究还为检验与语言变异和变化的描述和解释中的表观时间结构和社会与语言结构的关键交叉有关的假设提供了重要基础。 ***

9319577 WOLFRAM ABSTRACT This project examines the sociolinguistic significance of a set of Southeastern seaboard island communities located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Four primary research sites and several different secondary sites are being studied. Ocracoke, an Outer Banks island community settled in the early 1700s and still inaccessible by automobile, was selected for detailed sociolinguistic and ethnographic study. This variety is compared with the speech of two other Outer Banks communities which are now accessible by automobile, Harkers Island and Hatteras, as well as a contiguous mainland costal community, Beaufort, North Carolina. Data from these sites are, in turn, compared with previously collected data from other types of historically- isolated areas, including the Appalachian and Ozark mountains, and the Eastern Shore dialect area of Smith Island off the coast of Maryland. Data sources consist of a set of cross-generational sociolinguistic interviews being conducted in the four primary dialect areas, a set of previously collected oral history interviews providing for time-depth studies, a set of interviews conducted in connection with sociolinguistic studies in other historically-isolated situations, and a limited set of earlier written historical records reflecting Outer Banks varieties of the 1700 and 1800s. The particular set of socio-historical circumstances that combined to create the prototypical quasi-isolated island community makes it ideal for the empirically-based examination of general sociolinguistic principles relating to dialect contact, assimilation, and change. This study also provides an important basis for examining assumptions related to the apparent time construct and the critical intersection of social and linguistic structures in the description and explanation of language variation and change. ***