Doctoral Dissertation Research: Choctaw Language Ideologies and Their Impact on Teaching and Learning

博士生Elizabeth Kickham在Sean O‘Neill博士(俄克拉荷马大学)的指导下，将在乔克托语言项目、大学课程和社区课程参与者中调查语言意识形态、学习者动机和教学方法之间的关系。作为文化和语言振兴努力的一部分，在俄克拉荷马州中部和东南部的几所中学、大学和社区正在使用传统课堂设施和在线技术教授乔克托语。这项研究试图了解不同形式的语言培训、流利程度和对语言使用的态度之间的关系。它将考察一个悖论，即尽管学生表现出良好的课堂流利性，但他们很少在其他环境中使用这种语言，即使是年长的流利者也是如此。用来理解学生关于语言的重要性、实用性和身份功能的想法的方法将包括对虚拟和实际课堂互动的人种学观察、与参与者的访谈以及与社区成员合作解读数据的迭代过程。通过将语言表现、文化表现和语言意识形态的概念联系起来，本研究将进一步了解土著语言教育中影响语言学习动机、语言选择和教学方法的复杂性。这项研究将有助于理解乔克托语言计划的语言保存和教育努力的内部复杂互动和影响，从而帮助他们制定计划。它还将有助于在语言意识形态的背景下更广泛地了解遗产和土著语言教育做法和成果。此外，这项研究将把语言教学和学习作为语言表演的方式，使人们重新认识到，表演不仅发生在正式或艺术形式中，而且发生在日常互动中，在这些互动中，思想、价值观和身份被呈现出来，社区价值被创造和再创造。

Doctoral student Elizabeth Kickham, under the guidance of Dr. Sean O'Neill (University of Oklahoma), will investigate the relationship between language ideologies, learner motivation, and pedagogical method within the Choctaw Language Program, university class, and community class participants. As part of cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts, the Choctaw language is being taught in several secondary schools, universities, and communities, throughout central and southeastern Oklahoma, using both traditional classroom facilities and online technologies. The research seeks to understand the relationships among different forms of language training, fluency levels and attitudes about language use. It will examine the paradox that despite good levels of demonstrated classroom fluency, students rarely use the language in other contexts even with elder fluent speakers. The methods used to understand student ideas about the importance, utility, and identity functions of the language will involve an iterative process of ethnographic observation of virtual and actual classroom interactions, interviews with participants, and collaboration with community members to interpret data. By bridging the concepts of linguistic performance, cultural performance and language ideology, this research will further understanding of the complexities influencing language learning motivation, language choice, and teaching methods in indigenous language education.This research will contribute to an understanding of the complex interactions within and the impact of the Choctaw Language Program's language preservation and education efforts and thereby assist them in programmatic development. It will also contribute to a wider understanding of heritage and indigenous language education practices and outcomes within the context of language ideologies. In addition, the research will frame language teaching and learning as modes of linguistic performance, reviving the idea that performance occurs not just in formal or artistic forms, but in everyday interactions in which ideas, values, and identity are presented and community values created and recreated.