Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ideologies of Ethnic Stylization: Asian/Pacific American Linguistic Practices and Mainstream Participation at a Central Texas High School

在多民族背景下，年轻人不断地谈判各种民族语言风格的使用。通常，他们从事语言风格化实践(Coupland 2001)，或者突出表现一种与说话人或语境的无标记风格不同的语言风格。例如，一名萨摩亚裔美国人通常说一种主流的美国英语，他可能会使用一种模拟的中国口音。在国家科学基金会的支持下，基思·沃尔特斯博士和伊莱恩·春女士将在德克萨斯州的一所公立高中研究语言风格的使用，作为构建亚裔美国人和太平洋岛民美国青年身份的一种手段，这些群体在种族多元化的学生群体中占相当大的少数。特别令人感兴趣的是，亚裔和太平洋裔美国人如何将风格化做法融入到他们参与课堂以外主流活动的各种形式中。这项研究中的年轻人，其中许多来自多种族和移民家庭，通过利用校内和校外的语言资源，特别适合从事创造性的风格化实践。在承认这项研究的不同亚洲/太平洋美国人群体内部和之间存在差异的同时，调查人员也关注这些群体的成员是如何在美国背景下被构建为少数民族的。本研究通过民族志的方法收集数据，包括三个学期的全日制、日常参与者观察、田野笔记、访谈以及录音和录像，本研究将阐明微观层面的语言实践与学生的身份以及他们关于语言、社会认同和学校参与的当地意识形态的关系。对记录和转录的语篇数据进行以话语为中心的分析将梳理出与学生符号实践相关的复杂的种族、民族、民族、性别、性取向和阶级等意识形态。这一论文项目将对社会语言学和亚太美国人研究具有重要意义。它有助于语言学家理解个别说话者如何以及为什么在不同风格之间移动，有时甚至象征性地跨越种族边界，以及青少年如何学习将特定风格与特定类型的人联系在一起的语言意识形态。亚裔和太平洋裔美国人很少成为语言学研究的焦点。这项研究项目将引起人们对德克萨斯州一个军事城镇中被边缘化且特别复杂的亚裔/太平洋美国人社区的关注。该项目更广泛的社会影响来自于它对美国流行话语的挑战，这些话语延续了对亚洲人和太平洋岛民的刻板印象。此外，在主流学校活动的背景下对学生的语言实践和信仰进行深入调查，将有利于政策制定者和教育工作者，他们试图了解移民社区的学生接受、谈判和受益于这些活动的各种方式。

In multiethnic contexts, youths constantly negotiate the use of various ethnolinguistic styles. Often, they engage in language stylization practices (Coupland 2001), or the highlighted performance of a linguistic style that diverges from the unmarked style of the speaker or context. For example, a Samoan-American who typically speaks a mainstream variety of American English might employ a mock Chinese accent. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Keith Walters and Ms. Elaine Chun will examine the use of language styles as a means of constructing specifically Asian-American and Pacific Islander American youth identities at a public high school in Texas where these groups make up a sizeable minority of an ethnically diverse student body. Of particular interest is how Asian/Pacific Americans incorporate stylization practices into their varied forms of participation in mainstream activities outside the classroom context. The youths in this study, many of whom come from multiracial and immigrant families, are particularly well-positioned to engage in creative stylization practices by drawing from both in-school and out-of-school linguistic resources. While acknowledging the variability within and across the study's various Asian/Pacific American groups, the investigators are also concerned with how members of these groups come to be constructed and construct themselves as an ethnic minority in the U.S. context. Through ethnographic methods of data collection, including three semesters of full-time, daily participant observation, fieldnotes, interviews, and audio- and video-recordings, this study will illuminate the ways in which micro-level language practices relate to students' identities and their local ideologies about language, social identity, and school participation. A discourse-centered analysis of the recorded and transcribed data will tease apart the complex ideologies of race, ethnicity, nation, gender, sexuality, and class that are linked to students' symbolic practices.This dissertation project will be significant for research in sociolinguistics and Asian/Pacific American studies. It contributes to linguists' understanding of how and why individual speakers move between various styles, and sometimes symbolically across ethnic boundaries, as well as how adolescents learn language ideologies that link particular styles with particular kinds of people. Asian/Pacific Americans have rarely been the focus of linguistics research. This research project will bring attention to a marginalized and particularly complex Asian/Pacific American community in a Texas military town. The project's broader social impact derives from its challenge to popular discourses in the U.S. that perpetuate stereotypical images of Asians and Pacific Islanders. In addition, the in-depth investigation of students' language practices and beliefs in the context of mainstream school activities will benefit policymakers and educators who seek to understand the various ways in which students in immigrant communities accept, negotiate, and benefit from these activities.