Doctoral Dissertation Research: New Technologies and Emerging Communicative Practices Among the Navajo

博士论文研究：纳瓦霍人的新技术和新兴交际实践

• 批准号: 0345787
• 负责人: Joel Sherzer
• 金额: $ 1.18万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-01-15 至 2004-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0345787&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; New; Technologies

Under the direction of Dr. Joel Sherzer, Mr. Leighton C. Peterson will conduct ethnographic research for his doctoral dissertation concerning the impact of new technologies on Navajo language and society. Private initiatives and Federal policy decisions have recently made subsidized cell phones and free high-speed Internet connections available to the Navajo Nation, a traditionally underserved area in the US Southwest. This study focuses on the subsequent shifts in Navajo communicative practice, investigating how changing beliefs and attitudes regarding language and technology converge to form new ways of communicating. The research will consist of participant observation, recorded interviews, and video and audio recording of on-line and off-line interactions with technology. This research is significant in several ways. First, it brings the scientific study of language maintenance and sociolinguistics into new areas, including the potential of new media for the vitality of indigenous and minority languages. Second, this research investigates the micro and macro level processes involved in technologically-mediated language and culture. This is an important area of inquiry in linguistic anthropology, especially as indigenous and minority groups around the world increasingly engage new media in efforts of self-representation and cultural preservation. Third, this research explores the impact of programs designed to bridge the digital divide, investigating how members of a marginalized community, the recipients of the new technologies, are actually being served, and how the use of these new technologies is affecting them.

在Joel Sherzer博士的指导下，Leighton C.Peterson先生将为他的博士论文进行人种学研究，内容是新技术对纳瓦霍语和社会的影响。私人倡议和联邦政策决定最近为纳瓦霍民族提供了补贴的手机和免费的高速互联网连接，纳瓦霍民族是美国西南部一个传统上服务不足的地区。本研究着眼于后来纳瓦霍语交际实践的转变，调查了人们对语言和技术不断变化的信念和态度是如何汇聚成新的交流方式的。研究将包括参与者观察、录音访谈以及在线和离线与技术互动的视频和音频记录。这项研究在几个方面具有重要意义。首先，它将语言维护和社会语言学的科学研究带入了新的领域，包括新媒体对土著语言和少数民族语言生命力的潜力。其次，本研究考察了技术中介语言和文化所涉及的微观和宏观层面的过程。这是语言人类学的一个重要研究领域，特别是在世界各地的土著和少数群体越来越多地利用新媒体努力自我代表和保护文化的情况下。第三，这项研究探索了旨在弥合数字鸿沟的计划的影响，调查了被边缘化社区的成员--新技术的接受者--实际上是如何得到服务的，以及这些新技术的使用是如何影响他们的。