Doctoral Dissertation Research: Discourse Forms and Social Categorization in Cha'palaa

本论文的研究将产生第一个广泛的文件和Cha'palaa语言的描述，由厄瓜多尔西北部沿海低地的土著Chachi人说。它将把这些语言数据与拉丁美洲种族和民族的Chachi结构的民族志帐户联系起来，研究社会类别如何通过社会互动产生和复制。本研究的主要问题是，查帕拉语法资源如何在查其人关于自己和其他社会群体的话语中被激活。要解决这个问题，需要将传统的长期民族志研究与描述语言学的方法相结合，包括数字记录和存档以及计算机转录和数据库程序等新技术。要考虑的主要数据将是一个广泛的，转录，翻译和分析的语料库的视频记录的自然话语在查帕拉。该语料库将提供丰富的语言描述数据和文化知识文献，包括讲故事的传统，口述历史，生态知识，手工艺，农业，政治组织和仪式日历。该语料库将在几个地点存档，以供研究人员和社区成员保护和未来使用。论文将进行一个特殊的子集，这个语料库的分析，重点采访和日常对话中，Chachi人讨论自己相对于其他社会群体，如他们的非裔厄瓜多尔邻居。分析将产生一个位于文化背景下的语言的民族志帐户和一个Cha'palaa的语法草图，后来将形成一个完整的语法基础。大部分数据输入和分析将在接受大学支持和培训的母语顾问的帮助下完成。论文研究将成为今后与厄瓜多尔机构合作增加土著学生受教育机会的基础。

This dissertation research will produce the first extensive documentation and description of the Cha'palaa language, spoken by the indigenous Chachi people of the coastal lowlands of northwestern Ecuador. It will link this linguistic data to an ethnographic account of Chachi constructions of race and ethnicity in Latin America, examining how social categories are produced and reproduced through social interaction. The primary research question asks how the resources of Cha'palaa grammar are activated in Chachi people's discourse about themselves and other social groups. Answering this question requires combining traditional long-term ethnographic research living in Chachi communities with the methodologies of descriptive linguistics, including new technologies such as digital recording and archiving and computer transcription and database programs. The primary data to be considered will be a broad, transcribed, translated and analyzed corpus of video recordings of natural discourse in Cha'palaa. This corpus will provide both rich data for linguistic description and a documentation of cultural knowledge, including traditions of storytelling, oral history, ecological knowledge, handcrafts, agriculture, political organization, and the ritual calendar. The corpus will be archived in several sites for safeguarding and future use by researchers and community members. The dissertation will undertake an analysis of a special subset of this corpus, focusing on interviews and everyday conversation in which Chachi people discuss themselves relative to other social groups such as their Afro-Ecuadorian neighbors. The analysis will produce an ethnographic account of language situated in cultural context and a grammatical sketch of Cha'palaa that will later form the basis of a full grammar. Much of the data entry and analysis will be done with the help of native speaker consultants who receive support and training for college. The dissertation research will form the basis for future work with Ecuadorian institutions to increase educational opportunities for indigenous students.