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

在每天经常跨越国界的通勤者中，有上大学的学生。当他们面对国际边界和高等教育时，双语是他们日常生活的一个重要方面。这些跨境学生并不是一个单一的群体；他们来自不同的背景，有着不同的观点。他们可能对诸如“你更喜欢哪个地方？”或“你觉得自己和学校有联系吗？”等问题有不同的答案。反过来，这种多样性可以映射到不同语言之间的语言使用差异。社会语言学研究研究了说话者如何使用语言变化来构建反映当地社区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”，或者来自某个地区。由于大部分工作都集中在单语社区，一个正在进行的研究问题是双语者如何从多种语言中汲取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的贡献。这篇博士论文旨在研究大学边境通勤者在语言实践上的差异，以及高等教育和地域认同如何影响他们的语言使用。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高等教育机构代表不同类型的大学经历。本研究采用定性和定量相结合的方法对数据进行分析，并对不同机构的结果进行比较，以推进双语人群的变异和社会意义的研究。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。

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.