Analyzing Sociolinguistic Variation in Navajo

该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科学（SBE）博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划和SBE的记录濒危语言计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业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的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。罗伯特·贝利在加州大学戴维斯分校的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金支持早期职业科学家研究语言的变化和变化，在当代晚餐Bizaad（纳瓦霍），在今天的美国西南部说的美洲原住民语言。美国殖民者殖民主义的一个重要遗产是系统地根除北美语言，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，但这项工作面临的一个挑战是，土著少数民族的语言被认为变得非常多变，并发生重大变化，因为讲英语的人越来越多。虽然语言和社会因素有助于英语的变化和变化是很好的理解，很少有研究集中在土著少数民族语言的变化，问题仍然是当地的社会动态如何影响语言变异的传播，以及土著少数民族语言的变化是否从根本上不同于在其他环境中观察到的变化。这些问题的实证研究结果将为科学理论提供信息，并可能在关键变革时期应用于土著少数民族语言教学。该项目将侧重于有针对性地研究语言特征，在最近录制的采访和对话与双语Dine Bizaad-英语发言者。具体而言，研究人员将分析Dine元音，分类动词系统和词汇语气的变化和变化，以产生描述性和定量分析，揭示社会模式，并评估已知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，如区域，性别，声望和风格在一个描述不足的社会语言学背景下，以及双语的起源和传播的变化的作用。特别令人感兴趣的是，年轻的发言者正在介绍和解释新品种的Dine Bizaad的变化。此外，这些研究将测试对土著少数民族语言发生变化的类型的预测。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更大的全球语言之外。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

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.