Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Ideologies, Conservation Ideologies: Multilingualism and Collaboration in Transnational Environmental Work

环境保护工作往往针对世界上生物多样性水平较高的地区。这类地区的语言多样性也往往很高。这意味着，在不同利益攸关方之间实现协调与合作的困难往往因语言错误而产生的沟通错误和误解而雪上加霜。成功的保护需要科学家、教育工作者、猎人、农民、政策制定者和公民之间的合作，他们可能都有不同的目标和对环境的不同信念。当人们必须使用多种语言进行交流时，这种协作怎么可能实现呢？它什么时候能成功？它何时会失败，为什么会失败？为了回答这些问题，加州大学洛杉矶分校人类学博士生罗莎莉·埃德蒙兹将在保罗·V·克罗斯克里蒂博士的指导下，在一个高度生物多样性和深度多语言的网站上，对沟通和合作进行密切的人类学和语言学研究。考察不同的利益相关者如何在这个网站上合作，将有助于为无论发生在哪里的多语言工作场所制定适当的政策和做法。研究将在中非喀麦隆的林贝野生动物中心进行。这是进行这项调查的合适地点，因为除了英语和法语之外，喀麦隆还有280种土著语言，而且会说更多语言的游客也会访问该中心。尽管存在这些重大的语言挑战，该中心二十多年来成功地拯救和恢复了动物，同时还在当地学校和农村社区提供环境教育方案，并作为旅游目的地。在这样一个多元化的背景下，人们使用什么语言进行交流，以及他们如何解决误解？研究人员将通过观察人们如何合作解决环境问题来收集数据。她将记录日常活动和自然语言互动；进行采访，探索人们对保护工作的信念和沟通的看法；并进行参与者观察，以获得内部了解。通过结合语言学和环境人类学的方法，这项研究记录了人们如何在多语言环境中谈论、概念化和执行与保护相关的任务，以及他们的谈话对如何完成工作有什么影响。澄清人们在这种情况下如何沟通和合作，将为如何在跨国、多语言环境中成功谈判全球问题提供新的视角。此外，这项研究将开发促进跨文化交流的实用材料，包括语言指南，以及与不同背景的人交流的最佳实践研讨会。

Environmental conservation efforts are often directed to regions of the world that have high levels of biodiversity. Such areas frequently have high levels of linguistic diversity, as well. This means that the difficulties of bringing about coordination and cooperation among diverse stakeholders are all too often compounded by miscommunications and misunderstandings resulting from linguistic failure. Successful conservation requires collaboration between scientists, educators, hunters, farmers, policy makers, and citizens, all of whom may have different goals and hold different beliefs about the environment. How is such collaboration possible when people must work across multiple languages to communicate? When is it successful? When and why does it fail? To answer these questions, University of California Los Angeles anthropology doctoral candidate Rosalie Edmonds, supervised by Dr. Paul V. Kroskrity, will conduct a close anthropological and linguistic investigation of communication and collaboration in a site that is both highly bio-diverse and deeply multi-lingual. Examining how varied stakeholders work together in this site will enable the creation of appropriate policies and practices for multi-lingual workplaces wherever they may occur.The research will take place at the Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, Central Africa. This is an appropriate site for this investigation because in addition to English and French, Cameroon is home to 280 indigenous languages and the Centre is also visited by tourists who speak yet more languages. Despite these major lingustic challenges, the Centre has successfully rescued and rehabilitated animals for over twenty years, while also providing environmental education programming in local schools and rural communities, and serving as a tourist destination. In such a diverse context, what languages do people use to communicate with each other, and how do they resolve misunderstandings? The researcher will collect data by observing how people collaborate to solve environmental problems. She will record daily activities and natural language interactions; conduct interviews to explore people's beliefs about conservation work and perceptions of communication; and carry out participant observation to gain an insider understanding. By combining approaches from linguistic and environmental anthropology, this research document how people talk about, conceptualize, and perform conservation-related tasks in a multilingual environment, and what impact their talk has on how the work is accomplished. Clarifying how people communicate and work together in this situation will permit a new perspective on how global problems can be successfully negotiated in transnational, multilingual settings. Additionally, this research will develop practical materials to facilitate cross-cultural communication, including language guides, and a best practices workshop for communicating with people from different backgrounds.