Doctoral Dissertation Research: The English of American Indians in New York City

本论文项目将研究美国印第安人在纽约方言地区所说的英语，以更好地理解他们创造的泛印第安人的民族语言认同。更广泛地说，这个项目使用技术和方法创新来探索语言和不同身份水平之间的关系，特别是通过社会显著的语音变化来表达。这项研究将使对美国印第安人英语(AIE)的研究走出农村，进入城市，今天超过一半的美国印第安人生活在城市里。以前的学术研究大多基于20世纪70年代在农村社区的田野调查，声称每个部落都有特定版本的美国印第安人英语，不同物种之间不会发生借用。最近关于类似社区的学术研究挑战了这些结论。拟议中的研究将增加新的证据，以更好地理解这场辩论。因为城市印度人更有可能认同为一个单一的泛种族群体，所以假设他们正在形成泛印第安人的英语特征，而不是过去对印度农村社区的研究中发现的部落特有特征。说话者在泛种族网络中的融合度越高，他们就越有可能使用与美国印第安人英语相同的特征。与此同时，那些对自己的纽约身份有强烈依恋的说话者预计会在更大程度上使用纽约市的英语特色。25名融入纽约市美国印第安人社交网络的成年演讲者将接受采访。使用器乐社会语音分析来考察的音系特征包括纽约市英语的一个传统特征，即在“Catch”中元音的抬高和下垂，以及两个可能在不同的AIE中传播的特征：独特的韵律节奏，以及用声门停顿取代无声的口头停顿/p，t，k/。

This dissertation project will investigate the English spoken by American Indians in the New York City dialect area to better understand their creation of a pan-Indian ethnolinguistic identity. More generally, this project uses technological and methodological innovations to explore the relationship between language and different levels of identity, particularly as expressed through socially salient phonetic variation. The research will take the study of American Indian English (AIE) out of rural isolation and into the city, where over half of all American Indians live today. Previous scholarship, mostly based on fieldwork from the 1970s in rural communities, claimed that each tribe had a particular version of American Indian English, and borrowing between varieties did not occur. More recent scholarship on similar communities challenges these conclusions. The proposed study will add new evidence to better understand this debate. Because urban Indians are more likely to identify as a single panethnic group, the hypothesis is that they are developing pan-Indian English features, as opposed to the tribe-specific features found in past studies of rural Indian communities. The more integrated that speakers are in the panethnic network, the more likely they are to use the same features of American Indian English. At the same time, those speakers with a strong attachment to their New York identity are expected to use New York City English features to a greater extent. Twenty-five adult speakers who are integrated into the New York City American Indian social network will be interviewed. The phonological features to be examined using instrumental sociophonetic analysis include one traditional feature of New York City English, namely the raising and in-gliding of the vowel in "caught", and two features suggested to be spreading among varieties of AIE: a distinctive prosodic rhythm, and the replacement of the voiceless oral stops /p, t, k/ with glottal stops.