Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Influence of Media on Language Shift and Endangerment

博士生Kathryn Graber将在Alaina Lemon博士的指导下，通过一个案例研究当地报纸如何影响苏联解体后的俄罗斯的语言变化，来调查政府语言政策与濒危语言的持续存在之间的关系。在过去的16年里，后苏联社会中一些最核心和最激动人心的斗争与少数民族语言和他们所标记或创造的公众有关。与此同时，媒体在资金和控制方面进行了大规模重组。为了审视这些斗争在当代和历史背景下的发展，格雷伯将把重点放在西伯利亚东南部的贝加尔湖地区，那里的几代人一直在慢慢地从布里亚特语转向俄语，布里亚特语是一种与蒙古语密切相关的土著语言。这项研究将包括对俄罗斯主要的半自治民族布里亚特族地区布里亚特共和国当地媒体生产和消费的档案、民族志和社会语言学研究。格雷伯的初步研究表明，一些记者试图通过模仿“适当的”布里亚特人，或删减俄语单词和语法，来缓和布里亚特人的语言变化。布里亚特语报纸也是说话者接触书面语言的主要方式之一。然而，目前还不清楚媒体话语如何影响更广泛的布里亚特语公众的语言使用。这项研究将考察布里亚特语报纸的语言决定与普通说话者的日常语言之间的关系。研究者的研究方法将包括长期参与观察、结构化和半结构化访谈、互动的社会语言学分析和媒体话语的形式语言学分析。这项研究将有助于更好地理解导致语言迁移和濒危的因素。这项研究将帮助政策制定者在语言规划和发展项目中制定对上下文敏感的政策。该项目还有助于社会科学家的教育。

Doctoral student Kathryn Graber, under the guidance of Dr. Alaina Lemon, will investigate the relationship between government language policies and the persistance of endangered languages through a case study of how local newspapers affect language shift in post-Soviet Russia. Over the past sixteen years, some of the most central and impassioned struggles in post-Soviet society have concerned minority languages and the publics that they mark or create. Meanwhile, there has been massive restructuring in media funding and control. To examine these struggles as they unfold in both contemporary and historical contexts, Graber will focus on the multilingual Lake Baikal region of southeastern Siberia, where generations of speakers have been slowly shifting to Russian from Buryat, an indigenous language closely related to Mongolian. The study will consist of archival, ethnographic, and sociolinguistic research on local media production and consumption in Russia's major semi-autonomous ethnic Buryat region, the Republic of Buryatia. Graber's preliminary research has shown that some journalists attempt to moderate Buryat language shift by modeling "proper" Buryat, or by excising Russian words and grammar. Buryat-language newspapers are also one of the main ways in which speakers are exposed to the written language. Yet it is not clear how media discourse affects language use in the wider Buryat-speaking public. This study will examine the relationship between linguistic decisions in Buryat-language newspapers and the everyday language of ordinary speakers. The investigator's research methods will include long-term participant observation, structured and semi-structured interviewing, sociolinguistic analysis of interactions, and formal linguistic analysis of media discourse. The research will contribute to better understanding of the factors that underlie language shift and endangerment. The research will help policymakers formulate context-sensitive policy in language planning and development projects. The project also contributes to the education of a social scientist.