Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Social Functions of Immaturity: Marshallese Children as Moral Liars

博士论文改进补助金：不成熟的社会功能：作为道德说谎者的马绍尔儿童

• 批准号: 0920857
• 负责人: John Lucy
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2011-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0920857&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Improvement; Grant; Social

Graduate student Elise Berman (University of Chicago), supervised by Professor John A. Lucy, will investigate how children, when they lie or take stances on the truth or falsity of the statements of others, influence the flow of information. While adults are socialized to calculate their speech, children may not yet know how to correctly manipulate conversation. Consequently, they often say more than they ought. This research will consider what effects this immature speech has on social life and how it is regarded by others.The research will be carried out in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), where adults are known to guard their words carefully and view maintaining social harmony as more important than speaking truthfully. Thus the contrast between adult and child speech will be particularly visible. The researcher will employ a combination of ethnographic methods (participant observation and interviewing), discourse analysis methods (analysis of naturally recorded conversations and linguistic resources), and developmental psychological methods (videotapes of the interactions of six children of different ages for 30 minutes, twice weekly over the course of a year).The research is important because it will contribute to newly developing scientific theory about the social agency and effectiveness of children, as well as linguistic analysis of communication, metacommunication, and language ideologies cross-culturally. In addition, because it will reveal how ideas of truth and deception may vary cross-culturally, findings from this project will aid teachers and others who are responsible for children from other cultures avoid miscommunication by showing them that there are reasons their students speak as they do. This research also contributes to the education of a social scientist.

研究生Elise Berman（芝加哥大学），由John A.露西，将调查孩子们如何，当他们撒谎或对他人陈述的真实性或虚假性采取立场时，影响信息的流动。虽然成年人已经学会了计算他们的言语，但孩子们可能还不知道如何正确地操纵谈话。因此，他们经常说得比他们应该说的多。 这项研究将考虑这种不成熟的言论对社会生活有什么影响，以及其他人如何看待这种言论。研究将在马歇尔群岛共和国（RMI）进行，那里的成年人以谨慎地保护自己的言论而闻名，他们认为维护社会和谐比诚实说话更重要。因此，成人和儿童语言之间的对比将特别明显。研究人员将采用民族志的方法相结合（参与观察和访谈），话语分析方法（分析自然记录的对话和语言资源），以及发展心理学方法（录像带记录了六个不同年龄的孩子30分钟的互动，一年内每周两次）这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于新发展的关于儿童社会能动性和有效性的科学理论，以及对跨文化交际、元认知和语言意识形态的语言学分析。此外，因为它将揭示真相和欺骗的想法如何在不同文化中变化，这个项目的发现将帮助教师和其他负责其他文化儿童的人避免误解，向他们展示他们的学生说话的原因。这项研究也有助于社会科学家的教育。