Variation and language attitudes in Yurakaré: Setting out for a cross-linguistic perspective

拟议中的项目调查了yurakar<s:1>的语言变异及其与语言态度的关系。yurakar<s:1>是玻利维亚中部亚马逊低地的一种孤立语言，估计有2000人使用。语言变化的模式已被证明与年龄、性别、社会群体、地区和说话风格等社会因素有系统的相互作用。然而，这些见解大多是基于对英语和其他一些大型西方语言的研究。相比之下，我们对小规模的非西方语言的语言变化和语言态度的了解相对较少，尽管少数开创性的研究表明，这些语言在表现出的变化模式方面可能与大型西方语言不同。因此，为了更全面地了解世界语言的变化，需要对小规模非西方语言的变化和语言态度进行更多的案例研究。拟议的项目将提供一个这样的案例研究。它追求三个主要目标：首先，它旨在检测和描述尤拉卡语的语言变化模式。为此目的，将使用申请人已经编制的语料库进行语料库研究。为了证实这一发现，将在两个尤拉卡罗维尔村进行问卷调查，从代表所有相关社会群体的说话者那里收集系统的语言数据。该项目的第二个目标是研究变异和语言态度之间的关系。为此，问卷调查将收集咨询师对不同变体的感知、语言社会化以及对不同变体的态度等数据。该项目的第三个目标是通过调查特定语言变异与语言多样性的关系，将研究结果嵌入更广泛的跨语言和理论背景中。为了实现这一目标，申请人将与堪培拉澳大利亚国立大学的尼古拉斯·埃文斯合作。在他的项目“语言多样性的源泉”中，埃文斯和他的同事们在一些案例研究的基础上调查了这个问题。比较分析将揭示哪些社会因素促进和抑制变异，以及语言态度如何在这一过程中发挥放大作用。拟建项目将成为案例研究之一，代表亚马逊地区的多样性热点。总而言之，拟议的项目有助于描述和记录尤拉卡罗语，从而增加我们对世界语言的了解。此外，它还加深了我们对小语种中语言变异与语言态度之间关系的理解。此外，它还为揭示语言多样化的机制开辟了一个新兴的科学研究领域。

The proposed project investigates linguistic variation and its relation to language attitudes in Yurakaré, a language isolate spoken in the Amazonian lowlands of central Bolivia by an estimated number of 2,000 speakers. Patterns of linguistic variation have been shown to systematically interact with social factors like age, sex, social group, region, and speech style. However, most of these insights are based on studies of English and a few other large-scale Western languages. In contrast, our knowledge about linguistic variation and language attitudes in small-scale, non-Western languages is relatively small, even though the few pioneering studies show that such languages can differ from large Western languages with respect to the variation patterns they exhibit. Therefore, to arrive at a more comprehensive picture of variation in the languages of the world, more case studies of variation and language attitudes in small-scale non-Western languages are needed. One such case study will be provided by the proposed project. It pursues three main objectives: First, it aims at detecting and describing patterns of linguistic variation in Yurakaré. For this purpose, a corpus study will be carried out using a corpus that has already been compiled by the applicant. To corroborate the findings, a questionnaire survey will be conducted in two Yurakaré villages, collecting systematic speech data from speakers representing all relevant social groups. The second objective of the project is to examine the relation between variation and language attitudes. For this purpose, the questionnaire survey will collect data on the consultants' perception of different variants, on their language socialization, and on their attitudes toward different variants. The third objective of the project is to embed the findings in a broader cross-linguistic and theoretical context by investigating the relation of variation within particular languages to linguistic diversity. To achieve this, the applicant will cooperate with Nicholas Evans from the Australian National University in Canberra. In his project "The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity" Evans and his colleagues investigate this question on the basis of a number of case studies. The comparative analysis will reveal which social factors promote and suppress variation, and how language attitudes work as amplifiers of this process. The proposed project will constitute one of the case studies, representing the diversity hotspot of Amazonia. In sum, the proposed project contributes to the description and documentation of the Yurakaré language, thus augmenting our knowledge of the world's languages. Moreover, it enhances our understanding of the relation between linguistic variation and language attitudes in small-scale languages. Further, it contributes to a newly emerging field of scientific investigation, pioneering in revealing the mechanisms of linguistic diversification.