Steps in Grammatical Turnover-Shift

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Carol Myers-Scotton博士将对南非的科萨语-英语双语者进行研究。这个项目的目标是研究从一种语言到另一种语言作为说话者的主要语言的过渡在多大程度上是系统的，因为语言转换的步骤是可以预测的。目前美国的语言构成包括许多移民，他们的母语不是英语，但为了在美国找到有意义的工作，他们必须提高英语的流利程度。这个项目将促进对双语的理解和英语的学习，这对为新移民社区服务的教育工作者很有用。项目小组将收集说科萨语的人的语言使用数据，这些人迁移到远离家乡的城市和工业化地区。南非戏剧性的政治和社会变化使其成为考察语言变迁的绝佳选择。非常复杂的语言情况（现在有11种官方语言，包括9种班图语，加上南非荷兰语和英语）使得向英语的转变成为土著居民的中立和广泛有用的选择。如果在南非观察到的转变模式具有普遍的基础，那么在这个项目中收集的数据的语法方面的分析可以推广到美国的双语气候。该项目希望支持双语语言具有特定的、可预测的组织的假设。该理论认为，当移民在发展流利英语的过程中，他们的语言表现出两种语法结构。首先，他们在同一个句子中使用两种语言（他们的母语和英语），这种现象被称为代码转换。他们的双语语言也表明了一种语言的语法是如何受到另一种语言语法的影响的；这叫做收敛。该项目希望确定具体的语法步骤，包括语码转换和融合，随着使用者对第二语言（如英语）的熟练程度提高。了解这些步骤对美国教育工作者很有用，因为这些步骤将指出在向移民儿童和成人教授英语时使用的最佳教学工具类型。一般来说，具体步骤存在的证据对外语教师来说也是一个有用的工具。

Abstract Myers-Scotton BCS-0424829Steps in Grammatical Turnover-ShiftWith National Science Foundation support, Dr. Carol Myers-Scotton will study Xhosa-English bilinguals in South Africa. The goal of this project is to study the extent to which the transition from one language to another as a speaker's main language is systematic in the sense that the steps in language shift can be predicted. The current linguistic makeup of the United States includes many immigrants who are not native speakers of English, but who must develop working fluency in English in order to hold meaningful jobs in the U.S. This project will advance the understanding of bilingualism and the learning of English in ways that are useful for educators who serve communities with recent immigrants. The project team will gather data on language use among Xhosa speakers who have migrated to urban, industrialized areas far from their homes. The dramatic political and social changes in South Africa make it an excellent choice for examining the steps in language shift. The very complex linguistic situation (there are now 11 official languages, including nine Bantu languages plus Afrikaans and English) makes the shift to English a neutral and widely useful choice for the indigenous populations. If the patterns of shift observed in South Africa have a universal basis, the analysis of the grammatical aspects of data gathered in this project can be generalized to the bilingual climate in the United States.The project hopes to support the hypothesis that bilingual speech has a specific, predictable organization. The claim is that when immigrants are in the process of developing fluency in English, their speech shows two types of grammatical structures. First, they use two languages in the same sentence (their native language and English), a phenomenon known as code-switching. Their bilingual speech also shows how the grammar of one language is influenced by the grammar of the other language; this is called convergence. The project expects to identify specific grammatical steps involving code-switching and convergence as speakers become more proficient in a second language (e.g. English). Knowing about these steps can be useful to U.S. educators because the steps will point to the best type of teaching tools to use in teaching English to immigrant children and adults alike. Evidence that specific steps exist also would be a useful tool for foreign language instructors in general.