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高的地区。这些地区通常也有高度的语言多样性。这意味着，在不同利益相关者之间实现协调与合作的困难，往往因语言失败而导致的沟通不畅和误解而复杂化。成功的保护需要科学家、教育家、猎人、农民、政策制定者和公民之间的合作，所有这些人可能有不同的目标，对环境持有不同的信念。当人们必须跨多种语言进行交流时，这种协作如何可能呢？什么时候会成功？什么时候，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候选人Rosalie Edmonds将在Paul V. Kroskrity博士的指导下，在一个高度生物多样性和深度多语言的地点对交流和合作进行密切的人类学和语言学调查。检查不同的利益相关者如何在本网站协同工作，将有助于为多语言工作场所创建适当的政策和实践，无论这些政策和实践发生在哪里。这项研究将在中非喀麦隆的Limbe野生动物中心进行。这里是本次调查的合适地点，因为除了英语和法语之外，喀麦隆还有280种土著语言，而且该中心还接待了会说更多语言的游客。尽管面临这些语言上的重大挑战，该中心在过去的20多年里成功地拯救和康复了动物，同时还在当地学校和农村社区提供环境教育项目，并作为一个旅游目的地。在这样一个多样化的背景下，人们用什么语言来交流，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；进行访谈，探讨人们对保护工作的看法和对沟通的看法；并进行参与式观察，获得内部的了解。通过结合语言人类学和环境人类学的方法，本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的影响。澄清人们在这种情况下如何沟通和合作，将使人们对如何在跨国、多语言环境下成功地谈判全球性问题有一个新的看法。此外，本研究将开发实用材料，以促进跨文化交流，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.