Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Contact in a Southern Basque Town

在约翰·辛格勒博士的指导下，威廉·哈迪丹先生将为他的博士论文进行实地考察。他将用当地语言巴斯克语采访巴斯克Oiartzun镇的居民。这项研究将调查过去两个世纪以来巴斯克南部地区的重大社会变化是否导致了当地巴斯克方言的语法变化。哈迪丹先生将使用定量方法来评估西班牙语和新的语言标准巴图亚语对当地方言的影响。他还将研究说话者的语言实践如何与他们的身份、语言态度以及当代巴斯克地区的社会政治背景联系在一起。本研究抓住了一个难得的机会，在早期阶段研究标准化对语言的影响。本项目将有助于理解语法借用的社会制约因素。该项目对巴斯克语规划工作也具有实际意义，因为它探索了当地方言是如何变化的，以及这些变化过程中有哪些社会因素。对这些过程的更透彻的了解可能会为学校和媒体目前的语言规划战略提供参考，从而有助于更广泛地努力保护语言多样性。这项研究的结果将在网上以及在巴斯克和国际印刷出版物上公布。

Under the direction of Dr. John Singler, Mr. William Haddican will conduct fieldwork for his doctoral dissertation. He will interview residents of the Basque town of Oiartzun in the local language, Basque. This research will investigate whether important social changes in the Southern Basque Country over the last two centuries have led to grammatical change in local Basque dialects. Mr. Haddican will use quantitative methods to assess the influences of Spanish and Batua, the new linguistic standard, on the local dialect. He will also study how the linguistic practices of speakers are connected with their identities, language attitudes, and the sociopolitical context of the contemporary Basque Country. The present study capitalizes on a rare opportunity to study the effects of standardization on language at the earliest stages. This project will contribute to the understanding of social constraints on grammatical borrowing. The project is also of practical relevance to Basque language planning efforts, in that it explores how local dialects are changing and what social factors bear on these processes of change. A more thorough understanding of these processes may inform current language planning strategies in the schools and the media, and thereby contribute to efforts to preserve linguistic diversity more generally. The results of this study will be made available both on-line and in Basque and international print publications.