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Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation in Navajo

分析纳瓦霍语的社会语言变异

基本信息

批准号：
1907948
负责人：
Kayla Palakurthy
金额：
$ 13.8万
依托单位：
Palakurthy, Kayla P
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Fellowship Award
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-01-01 至 2022-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1907948&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation Navajo

项目摘要

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Documenting Endangered Languages program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Robert Bayley at the University of California, Davis, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist studying linguistic variation and change in contemporary Dine Bizaad (Navajo), a Native American language spoken in the present-day American Southwest. A significant legacy of American settler colonialism has been the systematic eradication of North American languages, leading to widespread shifts to English. In response, many communities have undertaken projects to maintain and revitalize their languages, but a challenge for this work is that Indigenous minority languages are thought to become highly variable and to undergo significant changes, as speakers are increasingly exposed to English. While the linguistic and social factors contributing to variation and change in English are well understood, little research has focused on variation in Indigenous minority languages, and questions remain about how local social dynamics influence the spread of linguistic variation among speakers, and whether changes in Indigenous minority languages are fundamentally different from changes observed in other contexts. Results from the empirical examination of these questions will inform scientific theories and may be applied in Indigenous minority language teaching at a time of pivotal change. This project will focus on targeted studies of linguistic features in recently recorded interviews and conversations with bilingual Dine Bizaad-English speakers. Specifically, researchers will analyze variation and change in the Dine vowels, the classificatory verb system, and lexical tone in order to produce descriptive and quantitative analyses that reveal social patterns and assess evidence for change in topics known to be challenging for language learners. Analyses will address the role of sociocultural factors such as region, gender, prestige, and style in an under-described sociolinguistic context, as well as the role of bilingualism in the origin and spread of changes. Of particular interest is the way that younger speakers are introducing and interpreting variation in newer varieties of Dine Bizaad. Furthermore, these studies will test predictions about the types of changes that occur in Indigenous minority languages. Overall, this research will inform theories of language variation and change and expand the relevance of sociolinguistic approaches beyond the often-studied larger global languages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会（NSF）社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划和SBE记录濒危语言计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在加州大学戴维斯分校罗伯特·贝利博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位早期职业科学家研究当代纳瓦霍语的语言变异和变化，纳瓦霍语是今天美国西南部使用的一种美洲原住民语言。美国殖民者殖民主义留下的一个重要遗产是有系统地消灭北美语言，导致广泛转向英语。作为回应，许多社区开展了维护和振兴其语言的项目，但这项工作面临的挑战是，土著少数民族语言被认为是高度可变的，并且随着使用者越来越多地接触英语而发生重大变化。虽然对英语变异和变化的语言和社会因素有很好的理解，但对土著少数民族语言变异的研究很少，而且关于当地社会动态如何影响语言变异在说话者之间的传播，以及土著少数民族语言的变化是否与在其他环境中观察到的变化有根本不同的问题仍然存在。对这些问题进行实证研究的结果将为科学理论提供依据，并可能应用于关键变革时期的土著少数民族语言教学。这个项目将集中于有针对性的研究语言特征，在最近记录的采访和对话与双语Dine Bizaad-English的人。具体来说，研究人员将分析元音、分类动词系统和词汇语调的变化和变化，以产生描述性和定量分析，揭示社会模式，并评估对语言学习者具有挑战性的主题变化的证据。分析将解决社会文化因素的作用，如地区，性别，声望和风格在一个未被描述的社会语言学背景下，以及双语在变化的起源和传播中的作用。特别令人感兴趣的是，年轻的讲话者是如何引入和解释更新的Dine Bizaad变体的。此外，这些研究将检验关于土著少数民族语言变化类型的预测。总的来说，这项研究将为语言变异和变化的理论提供信息，并将社会语言学方法的相关性扩展到经常研究的大型全球语言之外。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。