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

本论文将调查美国印第安人在纽约市方言区说的英语，以更好地了解他们创造的泛印第安民族语言的身份。更一般地说，该项目使用技术和方法创新来探索语言和不同层次的身份之间的关系，特别是通过社会显着的语音变化表达。这项研究将把美国印第安人英语（AIE）的研究从与世隔绝的农村带到城市，今天超过一半的美国印第安人生活在城市。以前的学术研究，主要是基于20世纪70年代在农村社区的实地调查，声称每个部落都有一个特定版本的美国印第安英语，并且没有发生品种之间的借用。最近对类似社区的研究对这些结论提出了挑战。这项拟议中的研究将增加新的证据，以更好地理解这一争论。由于城市印度人更有可能被认定为一个单一的泛种族群体，因此假设他们正在发展泛印度英语特征，而不是过去对农村印度社区的研究中发现的部落特有特征。在泛种族网络中，说话者越是融入，他们就越有可能使用美国印第安人英语的相同特征。与此同时，那些对自己的纽约身份有着强烈依恋的人也会在更大程度上使用纽约市英语的特点。25名成年发言人谁是融入纽约市美国印第安人社交网络将接受采访。使用社会语音学分析的语音学特征包括纽约市英语的一个传统特征，即“caught”中元音的提升和内滑，以及两个被认为在AIE变体中传播的特征：一个独特的韵律节奏，以及用声门塞音替换无意义的口头塞音/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.