Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Text-Based Grammar of Tulu

在Anthony Woodbury博士的指导下，Malavika Shetty女士将致力于为她的博士论文记录印度南部的图鲁语。图鲁语是一种德拉威语，主要在印度卡纳塔克邦的南卡纳拉地区使用。据估计，在南卡纳拉地区及其周边地区有150万人说图鲁语。本项目将使用的主要研究方法是：(i)对位于南卡纳拉邦的卡纳塔克邦民间表演艺术区域资源中心（RRC）收集和存档的历史、神话、宗教叙事和民歌的音频和视频记录文本进行分析；（ii）对自然发生的语音事件的音频和视频记录进行分析；（三）与其他母语人士协商。该项目的成果将是一个基于文本的土鲁方言语法。本文将通过使用文本和话语为中心的数据收集方法，提供更广泛和相对未研究的语言的共同方言的描述。该项目生成的语法将为评估图鲁语在南德拉威语系中的地位提供有价值的语言数据，并将有助于重建原始德拉威语。该语法将供母语人士、语言学家、人类学家、社会学家、教育工作者和课程规划者使用，并将为未来的教学材料奠定基础，这将有助于保护图鲁语。由于语言是文化的核心部分，因此记录像图鲁语这样的少数民族语言，并为创建教学材料提供基础，对于语言维护至关重要。

Under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Woodbury, Ms. Malavika Shetty will work towards documenting the Tulu language spoken in South India for her doctoral dissertation. Tulu is a Dravidian language largely spoken in the South Kannara region in the state of Karnataka in India. There are an estimated 1.5 million speakers of Tulu located in and around the South Kannara region. The main research methodologies that will be used for this project are (i) the analysis of texts based on audio and video recordings of historical, mythological, and religious narratives and folk songs that have been collected and archived at the Regional Resources Center for Folk Performing Arts in Karnataka (RRC) located in South Kannara; (ii) the analysis of audio and video recordings of naturally-occurring speech events; (iii) consultation with other native speakers. The product of the project will be a text-based grammar of the common dialect of Tulu. The dissertation will provide a description of the more widespread and relatively- unstudied common dialect of the language by using a textual and discourse-centered approach for data collection. The grammar produced by this project will provide valuable linguistic data to assess Tulu's place in the South Dravidian language family and will be useful for the reconstruction of Proto-Dravidian. The grammar will be accessible to native speakers, linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, educators, and curriculum planners and will provide a foundation on which to base future pedagogical materials that will aid in the preservation of the Tulu language. Since language is a central aspect of culture, documenting minority languages like Tulu and providing a basis for creating pedagogical materials are crucial for language maintenance.