Dissertation Research: The Role of Southern Vowels in Ethnic Diversity

该项目的目标是为北卡罗来纳州沃伦县的三个种族社区提供社会语言学和民族语言学边界的说明：非裔美国人社区、美洲原住民社区和欧美社区。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理想的社会语言学实验室。元音的声学分析将被用于精确定位语音间和语音内的变化，而基于定量的一组社会和语言变异的协方差研究将提供重叠但独特的方言系统的概况。将使用社会语言学家/本地实地工作者团队对所有三个社区的成员进行访谈，以增加目前的演讲者语料，目前包括36名沃伦县的演讲者。该项目将提供与当今社会语言学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确的信息。其次，定量和定性分析将更深入地探讨非裔美国人白话英语（AAVE）和欧美人白话英语（EAVE）之间可能存在的趋同或差异。在大城市进行的研究揭示了社会对英语方言变异和变化的影响；沃伦县的三族社区提供了一个截然不同的社会环境，一个以农业为基础的农村社区。印第安人社区可能与当地AAVE或EAVE语言社区趋同或分化，相对于一个单独的方言身份，也将为沃伦县印第安人社区试图满足联邦承认的规定提供重要证据。一种独特的方言可能会为美洲原住民社区的文化多样性主张提供证据。第三，对沃伦县语言的数据和分析将使整个语言学界更清楚地了解种族边界和语言变异的本质。沃伦县种族边界的社会环境为语言变化提供了一个不同的、多样的、文化丰富的视角。

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.