Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Descriptive Grammar of the Mosuo Language of Southwestern China

在Anthony Woodbury博士的指导下，Liberty Lidz女士将为她的博士论文收集摩梭语的语言数据。摩梭语是一种濒临灭绝的汉藏语言，在中国西南部约有4万人使用。越来越多的人说普通话，而不是摩梭语，尤其是在儿童和参与新旅游经济的人群中。主要的研究方法将是：(i)从句法、语音和词汇数据中提取信息，以及（ii）对自然发生的语音进行音频和视频记录。在Woodbury博士的指导下，Lidz女士将分析这些数据并制作语法、词典和口语文本的转录。这篇论文将提供一种几乎没有记录的语言的语法，来自一个世界上几乎没有数据的家庭。语言学家想要了解所有语言的共同之处，以及一种语言中可能出现的不寻常之处。关于摩梭语的数据将帮助语言学家理解这两种语言。摩梭语语法（包括部分翻译成中文和摩梭语注释）将是母语人士的宝贵资源。录音和录像将提供语言模式和民间故事等文化信息的档案，这些信息对母语人士、语言学家、人类学家、历史学家和社会学家都很有用。Lidz还将与摩梭人合作，为社区编写语言教材。语言是文化的核心部分，因此，在少数民族语言消失之前将其记录下来，并制作教学材料以阻止语言的流失，这一点至关重要。

Under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Woodbury, Ms. Liberty Lidz will collect linguistic data on Mosuo for her doctoral dissertation. Mosuo is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language with roughly 40,000 speakers spoken in southwestern China. Mandarin is increasingly being spoken instead of Mosuo, particularly among children and people involved in the new tourist economy. The main research methodologies will be (i) the elicitation of syntactic, phonological, and lexical data, and (ii) the audio and video recording of naturally-occuring speech. Under the guidance of Dr. Woodbury, Ms. Lidz will analyze these data and produce a grammar, dictionary, and transcriptions of oral texts.The dissertation will provide a grammar of a virtually undocumented language, from a family about which the world has little data. Linguists want to understand what is common about all language as well as what unusual things can occur in a language. Data on Mosuo will help linguists to understand both of these. The Mosuo grammar (with sections translated into Chinese and glosses in Mosuo) will be an invaluable resource for native speakers. The audio and video recordings will provide an archive of speech patterns and cultural information such as folktales, information which is useful for native speakers, linguists, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. Lidz will also work with the Mosuo to create language teaching materials for community use. Language is a central part of culture and as such, it is crucial to document minority languages before they disappear, and to create pedagogical materials to deter language loss.