Dissertation Research: Language Socialization and Language Maintenance in a Hasidic Community

尽管二战后有人预测意第绪语将消失，但意第绪语在纽约的许多哈西德社区与英语和希伯来语一起蓬勃发展，包括布鲁克林婆罗帕克的波波弗·哈西迪姆人。意第绪语对波波人的种族认同至关重要。然而，意第绪语的文化含义是与英语的使用模式形成对比的。这些语言选择模式--意第绪语和英语--是有性别差异的。在这个项目中，我使用语言社会化研究范式来调查幼儿成为一个群体的合格成员的活动，这个群体的身份是通过性别语言实践和其他自我和社区定义活动来确立的。我的研究将基于对照顾者和四个焦点儿童在家庭和学校背景下的自然语言录音的分析，以及对社区出版的英语和意第绪语儿童文学的分析。到目前为止，还没有关于哈西德儿童和多种语言习得和实践的研究。Bobover为语言社会化提供了一个特别有启发性的案例研究，因为在这个社区中，语言的维持(特别是意第绪语)和社会身份的复制是如此紧密地联系在一起。这项研究将对理解性别和宗教原教旨主义、社会再生产和变化的过程以及犹太民族身份和语言之间的关系具有更广泛的相关性。

Despite predictions after World War II that Yiddish would disappear, Yiddish has thrived alongside English and Hebrew in many New York Hasidic communities, including the Bobover Hasidim of Boro Park, Brooklyn. Yiddish is critical to Bobover ethnic identity. The cultural meanings of Yiddish, however, are established in contrast to patterns of English use. These patterns of language choice - Yiddish and English - are gendered. In this project I use the language socialization research paradigm to investigate activities through which young children become competent members of a groups whose identity is enacted through gendered language practices and other self and community defining activities. My research will be based on the analysis of audiotaped natural speech between caregivers and four focal children in contexts of home and school as well as analysis of English and Yiddish children's literature published by the community. To date, there has been no research which focuses on Hasidic children and multilingual acquisition and practices. The Bobover provide a particularly illuminating case study for language socialization because language maintenance (especially Yiddish) and the reproduction of social identity are so tightly linked in this community. This study will be relevant more broadly for understandings of gender and religious fundamentalism, processes of social reproduction and change, as well as the relationship between Jewish ethnic identities and languages.