Evaluation of the Processes Shaping Geographic Patterns of Language Diversity with Process-Based Simulation Models

使用基于过程的仿真模型评估塑造语言多样性地理模式的过程

• 批准号: 1660465
• 负责人: Michael Gavin
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-06-01 至 2021-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1660465&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evaluation; Processes; Shaping; Geographic; Patterns

This research project will examine the processes underlying the origins and geography of language diversity in North America. Hundreds of languages are spoken on the continent besides English, French, and Spanish, and these languages are unevenly distributed, with far more diversity in some places than others. Although this language diversity is well documented and fundamentally affects how humans communicate, relatively little is known about the processes that have shaped the geographic patterns of language diversity. The investigators will refine a new simulation modeling approach to provide new understanding regarding the degree to which different social and environmental processes have influenced language diversity patterns over the last 10,000 years. The methods the project will use will provide new tools for larger-scale and longer-term contributions to the discovery of processes that influence multiple facets of cultural diversity across the planet. The investigators will map North American language diversity and produce an open-access resource for the researchers, educators, students, and the public. The project will further enhance an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers and will increase the utility of a global, open-access database created to enable studies of cultural and linguistic diversity. The project also will provide interdisciplinary education and training opportunities for a diverse set of undergraduate and graduate students.Why do humans collectively speak so many languages, and why is the geographic distribution of these languages so uneven? Dating back centuries, researchers from many disciplines have debated the degree to which different sociocultural, environmental, and geographic factors have shaped linguistic diversity, but the few tests of these hypotheses have failed to reach consensus due to methodological limitations, including inadequacies in multivariate analytic approaches, the failure to account for non-independence of societies due to spatial proximity and common ancestry, and inadequate attention to complex webs of causal factors and to spatial and temporal dynamics of diversification and extinction. Previous research also has relied largely on correlation-based analyses, which imply only associations and cannot determine the mechanisms that lead to diversity patterns. The investigators undertaking this project have pioneered the use of process-based simulation modeling in biogeography to overcome the prior methodological limitations. They will build on experience gained during those activities to use recent modeling advances to conduct tests of long-standing and competing hypotheses from multiple disciplines regarding the geography of language diversity. Previous work employing this approach enhanced understanding of how rainfall and demography shaped language diversity patterns in Australia. By expanding their attention to North America, the investigators expect to provide new insights into the social, cultural, historical, and environmental processes that influence many facets of cultural diversity in different locales across the planet.

这个研究项目将考察北美语言多样性的起源和地理的潜在过程。除了英语、法语和西班牙语之外，非洲大陆上还有数百种语言，这些语言分布不均匀，有些地方的多样性要比其他地方大得多。尽管这种语言多样性被充分记录下来，并从根本上影响着人类的交流方式，但人们对形成语言多样性地理格局的过程却知之甚少。研究人员将改进一种新的模拟建模方法，以提供关于不同社会和环境过程在过去一万年中对语言多样性模式的影响程度的新理解。该项目将使用的方法将为发现影响全球文化多样性多个方面的过程提供更大规模和更长期的新工具。调查人员将绘制北美语言多样性地图，并为研究人员、教育工作者、学生和公众提供一个开放获取的资源。该项目将进一步加强一个国际和跨学科的研究人员网络，并将增加为研究文化和语言多样性而建立的全球开放获取数据库的效用。该项目还将为不同类型的本科生和研究生提供跨学科的教育和培训机会。为什么人类共同说这么多语言，为什么这些语言的地理分布如此不均匀？几个世纪以来，许多学科的研究人员一直在争论不同的社会文化、环境和地理因素对语言多样性的影响程度，但由于方法上的限制，对这些假设的少量测试未能达成共识，包括多元分析方法的不足，未能解释由于空间接近和共同祖先而导致的社会非独立性，对复杂的因果网络以及多样性和灭绝的时空动态关注不足。以前的研究也主要依赖于基于相关性的分析，这意味着只有关联，不能确定导致多样性模式的机制。承担该项目的研究人员率先在生物地理学中使用基于过程的模拟建模来克服先前的方法限制。他们将以在这些活动中获得的经验为基础，利用最近的建模进展，对有关语言多样性地理的多个学科长期存在的相互竞争的假设进行检验。以前采用这种方法的工作增强了对降雨和人口统计如何影响澳大利亚语言多样性模式的理解。通过将他们的注意力扩展到北美，研究人员希望对影响全球不同地区文化多样性的许多方面的社会、文化、历史和环境过程提供新的见解。

项目成果

Drivers of geographical patterns of North American language diversity

• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0242
• 发表时间: 2019-03
• 期刊: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
• 作者: Marco Túlio Pacheco Coelho;E. Pereira;H. Haynie;T. Rangel;Patrick H. Kavanagh;K. Kirby;Simon J. Greenhill;Claire Bowern;R. Gray;Robert K. Colwell;N. Evans;M. Gavin