Understanding Learning Mechanisms and Language Acquisition through Intergenerational Conversations in Southwestern Ojibwe, a Native American language

通过美洲原住民语言西南奥及布威语的代际对话了解学习机制和语言习得

• 批准号: 1664510
• 负责人: Mary Hermes
• 金额: $ 14.46万
• 依托单位: Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2021-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1664510&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Learning; Mechanisms; Language; Acquisition

Historically, the indigenous languages of the United States were acquired in homes and everyday life through intergenerational interactions between children, parents, grandparents and community members. However, the interruption of this naturalistic acquisition and intergenerational transmission means that today, many Native languages are being acquired in schools or other environments, rather than the home. The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages. This project will use the language sciences and the science of learning to analyze and understand the linguistic patterns and learning processes of children acquiring a Native language in these other contexts. Using forest walks as a way to analyze points of view, this project will pair together dyads of fluent elders with children learners. Theories of second language acquisition draw on learners of English and other European languages, but there is very little learning data from Native American languages, which often have very rich grammar in areas like morphology and animacy. This study will analyze potential differences in perspective that are encoded in communicative practices, focusing on communicative practices in indigenous languages. Scientists from the fields of linguistics, cognition, education and learning science will collaborate on this interdisciplinary project. Documentary linguistics methods will create an annotated multimedia corpus, available to learning scientists for investigation following similar studies previously conducted in English. Broader impacts include a publicly available corpus of unique and valuable language acquisition data, the training of indigenous scholars (who are underrepresented in the language sciences), support for language revitalization and the potential positive impact on intergenerational transmission of a Native American language.Southwestern Ojibwe, an endangered Algonquian language, has extraordinarily complex polysynthetic constructions, an area of grammar underdocumented in acquisition. Following findings that suggest the study of everyday language is essential for understanding categories and worldview, this study is the first known attempt to document intergenerational language in Ojibwe, thereby contributing to a more complete record of the language. By recording adult-child interaction, the project augments the documentation of fluent elders, while also creating data sets relevant to second language acquisition, the science of learning and the cognitive sciences. This project will adopt methodologies from learning science in English that have contributed to scientific knowledge of the ways Native American elders and children understand the natural world. Although the data collection and process is similar, this project will crucially use medium of communication as Ojibwe rather than English. The resulting corpus of linguistic data and analyses will contribute to the ongoing effort to understand cross-cultural differences in language socialization and in an understanding of the natural world.

从历史上看，美国的土著语言是通过儿童、父母、祖父母和社区成员之间的代际互动在家庭和日常生活中习得的。 然而，这种自然习得和代际传递的中断意味着，今天，许多土著语言是在学校或其他环境中习得的，而不是在家里。 美国国会于1990年通过的《美洲原住民语言法》承认了美洲原住民语言的独特地位和重要性。 该项目将使用语言科学和学习科学来分析和理解儿童在这些其他环境中获得母语的语言模式和学习过程。 利用森林漫步作为分析观点的一种方式，这个项目将把流利的老年人和儿童学习者配对在一起。第二语言习得理论借鉴了英语和其他欧洲语言的学习者，但很少有来自美洲原住民语言的学习数据，这些语言通常在形态和生命等领域具有非常丰富的语法。 本研究将分析编码在交际实践中的观点的潜在差异，重点是土著语言的交际实践。来自语言学，认知，教育和学习科学领域的科学家将在这个跨学科项目上合作。文献语言学方法将创建一个注释的多媒体语料库，可供学习科学家进行调查后，以前用英语进行类似的研究。更广泛的影响包括一个公开的独特和有价值的语言习得数据库，土著学者的培训，（在语言科学中代表性不足），对语言振兴的支持以及对美洲土著语言代际传播的潜在积极影响。西南奥吉布韦是一种濒临灭绝的阿尔冈昆语，具有非常复杂的多合成结构，在习得过程中未被充分记录的语法领域。 研究结果表明，日常语言的研究对于理解类别和世界观至关重要，这项研究是第一次尝试记录Ojibwe的代际语言，从而有助于更完整地记录语言。通过记录成人与儿童的互动，该项目增加了对流利老年人的记录，同时还创建了与第二语言习得、学习科学和认知科学相关的数据集。该项目将采用英语学习科学的方法，这些方法有助于了解美洲土著老人和儿童理解自然世界的方式。虽然数据收集和处理类似，但该项目将主要使用Ojibwe而不是英语作为交流媒介。由此产生的语言数据和分析语料库将有助于不断努力了解语言社会化和理解自然世界方面的跨文化差异。