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

在Alaina Lemon博士的指导下，博士生Kathryn Graber将通过对后苏联时期俄罗斯地方报纸如何影响语言转变的案例研究，来调查政府语言政策与濒危语言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、最激动人心的斗争都与少数民族语言和它们所标志或创造的公众有关。与此同时，媒体的资金和控制也进行了大规模的重组。为了研究这些斗争在当代和历史背景下的展开，格雷伯将把重点放在西伯利亚东南部的贝加尔湖地区，那里的多语言使用者一代又一代地从布里亚特语（一种与蒙古语密切相关的土著语言）慢慢转向俄语。该研究将包括对俄罗斯主要半自治的布里亚特共和国布里亚特民族地区的当地媒体生产和消费的档案、人种学和社会语言学研究。格雷伯的初步研究表明，一些记者试图通过模仿“适当的”布里亚特语，或通过删除俄语单词和语法来缓和布里亚特语的转变。Buryat-language报纸也是使用者接触书面语言的主要途径之一。然而，目前尚不清楚媒体话语如何影响更广泛的buryat公众的语言使用。本研究将探讨buryat语报纸中的语言决策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的参与者观察，结构化和半结构化访谈，互动的社会语言学分析，以及媒体话语的正式语言分析。这项研究将有助于更好地理解导致语言转移和濒危的因素。该研究将有助于决策者在语言规划和发展项目中制定上下文敏感的政策。该项目还有助于培养社会科学家。

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.