Dialect Maintenance, Accommodation, and Development in Sociohistorical Isolation

本项目考察了在地理位置、联系动态和社会历史环境不同的三个截然不同的岛屿环境中方言维持、适应和变化的动态。北卡罗莱纳州沿海的海德县是一个长期存在的、孤立的双种族社区，位于一个独特的方言区——外滩。非洲裔美国人和欧洲裔美国人现在已经相对孤立地生活在一起将近三个世纪了，因此提供了一个机会来研究当地方言在非洲裔美国人英语的历史发展中的作用。切罗基湾位于巴哈马群岛阿巴科地区的一个偏远半岛上，是海德县的一个镜像。海德县是一个由在独立战争后逃离美国的移民英美人组成的小社区，他们在相对孤立的环境中生活了两个世纪，周围是大多数黑人，他们说着独特的巴哈马英语。特里斯坦达库尼亚岛是世界上“最孤独的岛屿”，位于南大西洋，距离最近的定居点1500英里。19世纪初，一小群英国和美国的捕鲸者（75-200）在这里定居下来，他们在近150年的时间里几乎没有与外部群体接触。因此，它提供了一个相对不受外部语言影响的小社区中语言发展的视角。这些不同环境下的社会语言学数据为比较方言适应和创新在对比岛屿语言环境中的相对作用，以及研究对比环境下民族语言适应的动态提供了理想的经验基础。这项研究将进一步加深我们对语言接触、语言创新和语言维护的基本原理的理解。

This project examines the dynamics of dialect maintenance, accommodation, and change in three contrastive insular settings which vary in geographical location, contact dynamics, and sociohistorical circumstances. Mainland Hyde County in coastal North Carolina represents a longstanding, isolated bi-racial community situated within a unique dialect area--the Outer Banks. African Americans and European Americans have now lived together in relative isolation for almost three centuries, thus providing an opportunity to examine the role of local dialect in the historical development of African American English. Cherokee Sound, located on a remote peninsula of the Abaco region of the Bahamas, presents a mirror image of Hyde County--a small community of transplanted Anglo Americans who fled the United States in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and have lived in relative isolation for two centuries surrounded by a majority Black population speaking a distinctive Bahamian English variety. Tristan da Cunha is the world's "loneliest island," located in the South Atlantic 1500 miles from the nearest settlement. It was settled by a small group (75-200) of British and American whalers in early 1800s who then had virtually no contact with outside groups for almost 150 years. Thus, it offers a perspective on the development of language in a small community relatively free from external language influence.Sociolinguistic data in these different settings provide an ideal empirical base for comparing the relative role of dialect accommodation and innovation in contrastive insular language settings and for examining the dynamics of ethnolinguistic accommodation in contrastive situations. This study will further our understanding of the fundamental principles that underlie language contact, language innovation, and language maintenance.