Sociolinguistic Significance of Quasi-Isolated Island Communities

9319577 Wolfram摘要这个项目考察了位于北卡罗来纳州外滩的一组东南沿海岛屿社区的社会语言学意义。正在对四个主要研究地点和几个不同的次要地点进行研究。奥克拉科克是外班克斯岛的一个社区，建于18世纪初，仍然无法乘坐汽车到达，被选为详细的社会语言学和民族志研究的对象。这一变化与另外两个外银行社区的语言进行了比较，这两个社区现在可以通过汽车到达哈克斯岛和哈特拉斯，以及毗邻的大陆沿海社区，北卡罗来纳州的波弗特。这些网站的数据又被与之前从其他类型的历史孤立地区收集的数据进行了比较，这些地区包括阿巴拉契亚山脉和奥扎克山脉，以及马里兰州海岸外的史密斯岛的东岸方言地区。数据来源包括在四个主要方言地区进行的一组跨代社会语言学访谈，一组以前收集的口述历史访谈，提供时间深入研究，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，以及一套反映1700年和1800年外银行变化的有限早期书面历史记录。一系列特殊的社会历史环境共同创造了典型的准孤立岛屿社区，这使得它成为对与方言接触、同化和变化有关的一般社会语言学原则进行经验性审查的理想选择。这项研究也为我们在描述和解释语言变异和变化时检验与表观时间结构和社会结构和语言结构的关键交集相关的假设提供了重要的基础。***

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. ***