Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Grammar and Social Practice of Arapaho Storytelling: Stories in Conversational and Social Context

该项目建立在对北美阿尔冈琴族阿拉帕霍语的广泛语言学研究的基础上，旨在研究语法在讲故事和故事开始的社会实践中的作用。先前对这种语言和其他美洲原住民语言的研究表明，在探索会话数据以理解语言及其社会角色方面具有价值。诸如讲故事、抱怨、回忆之类的会话习惯是阿拉帕霍语社区中观察到的语言库的核心原则。因此，熟练地正确地讲述一个故事或在不暴露主犯的情况下提出抱怨，与了解自己的关系同样重要。通过考察当代土著阿拉帕霍人的对话实践，本研究询问故事是如何开始的，以及这些开始对对话有什么影响。这项研究分析了以前的语言研究中收集的数据，依靠的是视频记录。分析将通过注释语料库中的语法细微差别、听觉线索和会话模式来创建故事开始的模型。为了测试模型的可行性和注释的质量，研究人员将采访风河印第安保留区的土著阿拉帕霍人。访谈将在带有蜂窝互联网的移动设备上使用实时通信技术进行，蜂窝互联网是预订处提供的主要可靠互联网服务。融入当地社区对这个项目至关重要。它强调语言对土著传统的价值。最后，这项研究将有助于这个社区所从事的语言回收工作。与故事开头相关的语法和互动方面将为语言学习材料的创作提供信息。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。

This project builds on the extensive linguistic research of the Arapaho language of the Algonquian family in North America to examine the role of grammar in the social practice of storytelling and story initiations. Previous studies in this and other Native American languages demonstrated value in exploring the conversational data for understanding the language and its social role. Such conversational habits as telling a story, complaining, reminiscing are the core principles of the linguistic repertoires observed in the Arapaho speech community. Thus, the proficiency to correctly tell a story or to produce a complaint without outing the main offender is as important as knowing one's relations.By examining the contemporary conversational practices of the native Arapaho speakers, the research asks how stories are initiated and what these initiations entail for the conversation. This research analyzes data collected in previous studies of the language, relying on the video recordings. The analysis will create a model of story initiations by annotating the grammatical nuances, auditory cues, and conversational patterns in the corpus. To test the viability of the model and the quality of annotations, the researchers will interview the native Arapaho speakers in the Wind River Indian Reservation. The interviews will be conducted using real-time communication technologies on mobile devices with cellular internet, which is the main reliable internet service available on the reservation. The inclusion of the native community is crucial for this project. It emphasizes the value of the language to the indigenous traditions. Lastly, this research will contribute to the language reclamation efforts in which this community is engaged. The grammatical and interactional aspects relevant to story initiations will inform the creation of language learning materials.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.