Language stories from Seaton Branch Line: Sharing the Hidden Voices of Social and Cultural Change

我的研究项目建议建立一个创新的、跨学科的方法框架，使用社会语言学分析来(重新)审查档案材料中语言的使用，并促进现有研究中代表性不足的群体的出现。研究语言的社会语言学方法包括对群体和个人使用的语料库以及与民族语言背景、出生地和社会经济方面等特征有关的语料库进行语境评估。这项研究将应用这些社会语言学和民族志技术，通过研究以前的支线及其后来作为遗产电车轨道的生活，通过研究铁路对德文郡西顿社区的社会和文化影响，加强对交通地点和空间的历史分析和解释。因此，该项目突出了语言作为遗产的作用，同时促进了关于纪念过程的生态层面的前沿辩论。该项目将在西顿电车和国家铁路博物馆的支持下进行。

My research project proposes to build an innovative, interdisciplinary methodological framework using sociolinguistic analyses to (re-)examine the use of language in archival material and facilitate the emergence of groups that are under-represented in existing research. Sociolinguistic approaches to the study of language include an in-context assessment of language repertoires as they are deployed by groups and individuals and in relation to characteristics such as ethnolinguistic background, place of origin, and socio-economic aspects. This research will apply these sociolinguistic and ethnographic techniques which examine placemaking to enhance historical analysis and interpretation of places and spaces of transport by examination of the social and cultural influence of the railways on communities in Seaton, Devon through a study of the former branch line and its subsequent life as a heritage tramway. The project therefore highlights the role of language as heritage while contributing to cutting-edge debates about the ecological dimension of memorialisation processes. The project will be undertaken with support from Seaton Tramway and the National Railway Museum.