Sociolinguistic Significance of Quasi-Isolated Island Communities

摘要本项目研究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。目前正在研究四个主要研究地点和几个不同的次要研究地点。奥克拉科克（Ocracoke）是外滩群岛（Outer Banks）的一个岛屿社区，建于18世纪初，至今仍没有汽车进入，它被选中进行详细的社会语言学和人种学研究。这种多样性与其他两个外滩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，哈克岛和哈特拉斯，以及一个毗连的大陆沿海社区，北卡罗来纳州的博福特。反过来，从这些地点收集的数据与先前从其他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，以及马里兰州海岸史密斯岛的东海岸方言区。数据来源包括在四个主要方言区进行的一组跨代社会语言学访谈，一组先前收集的用于时间深度研究的口述历史访谈，一组与其他历史孤立情况下的社会语言学研究相关的访谈，以及一组有限的早期书面历史记录，反映了1700年和1800年的外滩变化。特殊的社会历史环境组合在一起，创造了典型的准孤岛社区，这使得它成为基于经验的关于方言接触、同化和变化的一般社会语言学原理的检验的理想场所。本研究也为检验在描述和解释语言变异和变化时与表观时间结构和社会结构与语言结构的关键交集有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. ***