Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Local Media and Language Revitalization

人类语言的多样性证明了我们这个物种的聪明才智和智力的复杂性。世界各地的研究表明，关于世界如何运作的重要知识，包括关于自然环境的独特且往往有价值的知识，在不同的语言中以不同的方式编码。因此，一种语言的消失，不仅是说这种语言的人的根本损失，也是人类智力储备的根本损失。然而，人们普遍认为，在美国和世界范围内，许多语言正濒临灭绝。根据大多数估计，到2100年，世界上大约6000种语言中至少有一半将不再使用。虽然大众媒体经常被指责加剧了语言的丧失，但当地社区已经开始开发自己的广播和电视节目，作为一种基层手段，以增加濒危语言的使用。了解这些保护濒危语言的基层项目的效果，对于制定保护人类集体知识的环境敏感项目和政策至关重要。该奖项资助的研究将集中在一个这样的基层项目上。密歇根大学的博士生乔治亚·恩尼斯将在布鲁斯·曼海姆博士的指导下，在厄瓜多尔亚马逊地区的低地基丘亚人进行研究，在那里，关于当地生态系统的不可替代的知识正受到不断向西班牙语转变的威胁。她将重点关注亚马逊基丘亚人通过社区广播电台开展的基层语言复兴项目。这种环境特别适合进行研究，因为该区域建立了完善的社区无线电基础设施，目前正在有意识地调动这些基础设施，以增加低地基丘亚的使用。研究无线电可能会特别有成效，因为它仍然是最广泛，易于使用和廉价的媒体技术之一。调查人员将评估濒危语言的广播制作和广播是否有助于保持甚至增加听众对该语言的使用。她还将探讨媒体制作如何改变听众的讲话，最终改变语言本身。调查员将在当地广播电台和基丘亚社区进行长期研究，以便追踪广播媒体制作和接收对语言使用的影响。数据将通过多种社会科学方法收集，包括调查和观察语言使用，媒体消费习惯，语言态度和信仰。她还将收集和存档听众和非听众的语言使用样本，以进行比较分析。这项研究的结果将为媒体制作作为濒危语言振兴战略的可行性提供见解。研究结果还将有助于研究语言变化的方式和原因。

The diversity of human languages is a testament to the ingenuity and intellectual complexity of our species. Research throughout the world reveals that significant knowledge about how the world works, including unique and often valuable knowledge about the natural environment, is encoded differently in different languages. The loss of a language, then, is a fundamental loss not only to the people who speak that language but also to humanity's intellectual repertoire. Yet, it is widely recognized that in the United States, as well as worldwide, many languages are endangered. By most estimates, at least half of the world's approximately 6,000 languages will cease to be spoken by 2100. Although mass media have frequently been blamed for aggravating language loss, local communities have begun to develop their own radio and television programming as a grassroots means to increase the use of endangered languages. Understanding the effects of these grassroots projects to save endangered languages is crucial for creating context-sensitive programs and policies that will protect humanity's collective knowledge. The research funded by this award will focus on one such grassroots project. University of Michigan doctoral student Georgia Ennis, under the supervision of Dr. Bruce Mannheim, will conduct research among the lowland Quichua in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where irreplaceable knowledge about the local ecosystem is threatened by ongoing language shift towards Spanish. She will focus on grassroots language revitalization programs being carried out by Amazonian Quichua through community radio stations. This setting is particularly appropriate for the research due to well-established community radio infrastructure in the region, which is now being consciously mobilized to increase the use of lowland Quichua. Studying radio may be especially productive, as it remains one of the most widespread, easy to use, and inexpensive media technologies. The investigator will assess whether radio production and broadcasting in an endangered language help maintain or even increase its use among listeners. She will also explore how media production may alter the speech of listeners and ultimately the language itself. The investigator will conduct long-term research at local radio stations and in Quichua communities in order to track the effects of radio media production and reception on language use. Data will be collected through multiple social science methods including surveys and observation of language use, habits of media consumption, and linguistic attitudes and beliefs. She will also collect and archive samples of language use by listeners and non-listeners for comparative analysis. The results of this research will provide insights into the viability of media production as a strategy for revitalization of endangered languages. Findings will also contribute to theories of how and why languages change.