Code-switching in spontaneous bilingual speech

自发双语语音中的语码转换

• 批准号: 1624966
• 负责人: Rena Torres Cacoullos
• 金额: $ 45.33万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-01 至 2022-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1624966&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Code; switching; spontaneous; bilingual; speech

The goal of this collaborative research project, led by Rena Torres Cacoullos at Pennsylvania State University and Shana Poplack at the University of Ottawa, is to uncover the strategies used by bilinguals as they switch seamlessly between their two languages. Bilinguals alternate between stretches of speech in the different languages even when speaking on the same topic to the same interlocutor. Beyond merely inserting isolated words from another language, such code-switching may involve juxtaposing entire phrases from different languages in the same speech event. Educators, journalists, and other public figures often disparage code-switching as haphazard mixing, yet it is now known that those who code-switch are in fact the most highly skilled bilinguals. What is still a conundrum are the rules governing code-switching. This project will integrate research and education by training students to analyze natural bilingual speech. The project will promote international inter-university collaborations, and by revealing the systematic patterning of bilingual speech, the results will help counteract the disparagement of what is often labeled Spanglish. The New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual speech corpus, constructed with prior NSF support, provides an appropriate database for the scientific investigation of code-switching because it contains copious instances produced during spontaneous bilingual conversations. The transcribed recordings will be comprehensively tagged for language and, based on this infrastructure, systematic quantitative analyses will be carried out to address two kinds of questions. One is the linguistic conditions on code-switching: At which syntactic and prosodic points in the speech stream do bilinguals prefer to code-switch? The other is the cognitive processes involved: Do contextual elements, such as cognate words and interlocutor language choice, act as triggers? By counting both instances of the presence and absence of code-switching, the researchers will be able to distinguish idiosyncratic tokens from community norms and rare occurrences from major patterns, estimate the propensity of code-switching at particular sites, and evaluate the actual role and scope of contextual elements that have been hypothesized to constrain patterns of code-switching.

这项合作研究项目由宾夕法尼亚州立大学的雷纳托雷斯卡库洛斯和渥太华大学的沙娜波普拉克领导，目的是揭示双语者在两种语言之间无缝切换时所使用的策略。 双语者即使对同一个对话者谈论同一个话题，也会在不同语言的讲话片段之间交替。除了仅仅插入来自另一种语言的孤立单词之外，这种代码转换可能涉及在同一语音事件中并置来自不同语言的整个短语。教育工作者、记者和其他公众人物经常把语码转换看作是随意的混合，但现在人们知道，那些语码转换的人实际上是最熟练的双语者。仍然是一个难题的是控制语码转换的规则。该项目将通过训练学生分析自然双语语音来整合研究和教育。该项目将促进国际大学间的合作，通过揭示双语语音的系统模式，其结果将有助于抵消对通常被称为西班牙式英语的轻视。新墨西哥州的西班牙语-英语双语语音语料库，与先前的NSF的支持下构建的，提供了一个合适的数据库，为科学研究的代码转换，因为它包含了大量的实例，在自发的双语对话。将对转录的录音进行全面的语言标记，并在此基础上进行系统的定量分析，以解决两类问题。一是语码转换的语言条件：双语者在言语流中的哪些句法和韵律点上更倾向于进行语码转换？另一个是涉及的认知过程：语境因素，如同源词和对话者的语言选择，作为触发？通过统计存在和不存在语码转换的情况，研究人员将能够区分特殊的标记和社区规范，以及罕见的主要模式，估计在特定地点的语码转换的倾向，并评估已假设约束语码转换模式的上下文元素的实际作用和范围。