Dissertation Research: The Role of Southern Vowels in Ethnic Diversity

该项目的目标是介绍北卡罗来纳州沃伦县三个族裔社区的社会语言和民族语言边界：非洲裔美国人社区、土著美国人社区和欧洲裔美国人社区。社区之间关系的复杂性为研究种族边界对语言变化和变异的影响提供了一个理想的社会语言学实验室。我们将对元音进行声学分析，以找出传统的发音间和发音内的变异，并对一组社会和语言变异进行定量的协方差研究，以提供重叠但独特的方言系统的轮廓。将利用社会语言学家/本地田野工作者小组对所有三个社区的成员进行访谈，以扩大目前的发言者语料库，目前语料库包括36名沃伦县发言者。该项目将提供与当今社会语言学中的三个主要问题有关的数据和分析。首先，研究将提供有关南方语言认同状况的最新和精炼的信息。第二，定量和定性分析将使人们更仔细地观察非裔美国人的本土英语(AAVE)和欧美人的本土英语(Eave)之间可能的趋同或差异。在大城市进行的研究揭示了社会对白话英语变异和变化的影响；沃伦县的种族社区提供了一个非常不同的社会状况，一个以农业为基础的农村社区。美国原住民社区与当地AAVE或屋檐语言社区可能的趋同和分歧，相对于一个单独的方言身份，也将为沃伦县美国原住民社区试图满足联邦承认的规定提供关键证据。一种独特的方言可能会为美洲原住民社区文化多样性的说法提供证据。第三，沃伦县演讲的数据和分析将使整个语言界对种族边界和语言变异的性质有更清晰的认识。沃伦县种族边界的社会背景为语言变异提供了一个不同的、多样化的和丰富的文化视角。

The goal of the project is provide an account of the sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic boundaries for the three ethnic communities in Warren County, NC: the African-American community, the Native-American community, and the European-American community. The complex nature of the relationships between the communities offers an ideal sociolinguistic laboratory for examining the effects of ethnic boundaries on language change and variation. Acoustic analysis of vowels will be conducted to pinpoint inter- and intradialectal variation, and quantitatively based covariance studies of a set of social and linguistic varieties will provide a profile of the overlapping but distinctive dialect systems. Interviews with members of all three communities will be conducted using sociolinguist/native fieldworker teams to augment the present corpus of speakers, which presently includes 36 Warren County speakers. The project will provide data and analysis relating to three major issues in sociolinguistics today. First, research will provide current and refined information on the state of Southern linguistic identity. Second, quantitative and qualitative analysis will provide a closer look at the possible convergence or divergence between African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and European-American Vernacular English (EAVE). Studies done in large, urban cities reveal social influences on the variation and change of vernacular English; the triracial community of Warren county offers a vastly different social situation, that of an agriculturally based rural community. The possible convergence and divergence of the Native American community with either the local AAVE or EAVE speech communities, vis-a-vis a separate dialectal identity, will also provide crucial evidence pertaining to the attempts of the Warren County Native American community to meet regulations for federal recognition. A distinctive dialect may lend credence to claims of cultural diversity for the Native American community. Third, data and analysis of Warren County speech will provide the linguistic community at large with a clearer view of the nature of ethnic boundaries and language variation. The social setting of Warren County's ethnic boundaries offers a different, diverse, and culturally rich perspective on language variation.