Doctoral Dissertation Research: Place, Persona, and Linguistic Style among College Student Border Commuters

在经常跨越国界的日常通勤者中，有上大学的学生。当他们在国际边界和高等教育中航行时，双语是他们日常生活的一个重要方面。这些跨界学生不是一个同质的群体;他们来自不同的背景，有不同的观点。他们可能会有不同的答案，如问题，“你更喜欢哪个位置？或者“你觉得和校园有联系吗？“反过来，这种多样性可以映射到不同语言之间语言使用的差异。社会语言学研究研究了说话者如何使用语言变异来构建反映当地社区内社会意义类别的风格。人们可以改变他们说话的方式来强调他们自己的一个品质或他们身份的一个方面。例如，他们可能会使用某些语言特征来听起来更“女性化”或“酷”，或来自某个地区。由于这项工作主要集中在单语社区，一个正在进行的研究问题是双语者如何利用多种语言的资源来构建代表不同社会身份的风格。因此，本研究分析了大学生中出现的各种双语风格。通过记录双语跨境学生的经历，这项工作不仅推进了社会语言学和双语研究，而且对教育和边境研究等相关领域做出了宝贵贡献。本博士论文旨在研究大学边境通勤者在语言实践中的差异以及高等教育和地区身份如何塑造他们的语言使用。为了解决这些问题，本论文采用社会语言学访谈和民族志实地考察在多个代表不同类型的大学经历的大专院校。该研究采用了定性和定量相结合的方法来分析数据，并比较各机构的结果，以推进双语人群的变化和社会意义的研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是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的支持。

Among the daily commuters who regularly cross national borders are students to attend college. As they navigate international borders and higher education, bilingualism is a critical aspect of their everyday life. These border-crossing students are not a homogenous group; they come from a range of backgrounds and have varying perspectives. They may have different answers to questions such as, "Which location do you prefer?" or "Do you feel connected to your campus?" In turn, this diversity can map on to differences in language use across languages. Sociolinguistic research has studied how speakers use linguistic variation to construct styles that reflect socially meaningful categories within a local community. People can vary how they speak to emphasize a quality about themselves or an aspect of their identity. For example, they may use certain linguistic features to sound more "feminine," or "cool," or from a certain region. Since much of this work has focused on monolingual communities, an ongoing research question is how bilingual speakers draw on resources from multiple languages to construct styles that represent different social identities. Thus, the present study analyzes the varied bilingual styles that emerge among college students. By documenting the experiences of bilingual transborder students, this work not only advances research in sociolinguistics and bilingualism but also represents a valuable contribution to fields in related areas, such as education and border studies. This doctoral dissertation aims to study how college border commuters vary in their linguistic practices and how higher education and regional identity shape their language use. To address these questions, this dissertation employs sociolinguistic interviews and ethnographic fieldwork at multiple postsecondary institutions representing different types of college experiences. The study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the data and compare results across institutions in order to advance the study of variation and social meaning in bilingual populations.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.