External influences and internal variation in current Hawai`i Creole English

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，杰弗里·A.西格尔将进行为期三年的夏威夷克里奥尔英语（HCE）的研究。 这种克里奥尔语在当地被称为“皮钦语”，起源于夏威夷甘蔗种植园的多种族移民劳动力，目前约有60万人使用。该项目有两个目的。首先是描述现代HCE的语法特征以及语言变化，无论是在其当前的使用和随着时间的推移。第二个目的是考察外部因素对语言发展的影响。这些语言包括种植园工人的原始语言（特别是夏威夷语、葡萄牙语、广东话和日语），以及最近移民到夏威夷的语言（如塔加语和伊洛卡诺语）。该项目将建立两个计算机数据库进行分析。书面数据库将包括过去三十年来使用该语言出版的文献。口语数据库将包括为该项目雇用和培训的讲HCE的实地工作人员制作的发言者录音的翻译。口语数据的来源将有两种类型：广泛的发言者讲故事的录音，以及两个不同社会群体的几个成员的较长录音，其中一个在移民社区，在较长的时间内完成。此外，还将对1975年和1989年由其他研究人员录制的发言者进行后续录音。这将有助于研究个体言语乃至整个语言的变化，其研究结果将具有理论和实践意义。首先，有人声称HCE几乎没有受到其他语言的影响，相反，它反映了作为人类遗传禀赋一部分的普遍语言特征。事实上，HCE通常被认为是语言先天智力的证据。该项目的调查结果将用于严格审查这些索赔。第二，像其他克里奥尔语一样，HCE有一个变体的连续体，从那些与提供大部分词汇的语言（英语，在HCE的情况下）最不同的语言，到那些与它最相似的语言。几十年来，社会语言学家一直在争论这种连续体是由于个人在一生中改变了他们的语言，还是反映了言语社区的代际变化。本项目将研究纵向数据（从1975年至今），以阐明这一问题。 该项目还将对教育政策具有实际意义。 教育工作者指责HCE在全国阅读和写作测试中成绩不佳。过去曾为母语为英语的学生开设过特殊的教育课程，试图用学生自己的语言作为通往标准英语的桥梁。但是，一个主要问题是缺乏一个资源，教师提供有关当前HCE的一般信息。该项目将提供这样一种资源，并将通过一个非技术性网站和教师讲习班传播信息。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Jeffrey A. Siegel will conduct a three-year study study of Hawai'i Creole English (HCE). Locally known as "Pidgin," this creole language arose among the multi-ethnic immigrant work force on sugar plantations in Hawai'I, and is currently spoken by approximately 600,000 people. The aims of the project are twofold. The first is to describe the grammatical features of modern HCE as well as linguistic variation, both in its current use and over time. The second aim is to examine the external influences on the development of the language. These include the original languages of the plantation workers (especially Hawaiian, Portuguese, Cantonese and Japanese), as well as those of more recent immigrants to Hawai'i (such as Tagalog and Ilocano). The project will create two computer databases for analysis. The written database will include published literature using the language from the last three decades. The spoken database will include transcriptions of recordings of speakers made by HCE-speaking fieldworkers hired and trained for the project. The sources of spoken data will be of two types: recordings of a wide range of speakers telling stories, and longer recordings of a few members of two different social groups, one in an immigrant community, done over longer periods of time. In addition, follow-up recordings will be made of speakers who were previously recorded by other researchers in 1975 and 1989. This will allow an investigation of the changes that have taken place in the speech of individuals as well as in the language as a whole.The findings of this project will have both theoretical and practical significance. First, it has been claimed that HCE shows very little influence from other languages and that, rather, it reflects universal linguistic characteristics that are part of human genetic endowment. In fact, HCE is often referred to as evidence of an innate mental faculty for language. Findings from this project will be used to critically examine these claims. Second, like other creole languages, HCE has a continuum of varieties ranging from those most different from the language which provided the bulk of the vocabulary (English, in the case of HCE), to those most similar to it. For decades sociolinguists have been arguing about whether this kind of continuum results from individuals changing their speech in their lifetimes or whether it reflects generational changes in the speech community. This project will examine the longitudinal data (from 1975 to the present) to throw some light on this question. The project will also have practical significance for educational policies. Educators have blamed HCE for poor results in national tests of reading and writing. Special educational programs for HCE speakers have been conducted in the past, attempting to use the students' own language as a bridge to standard English. But a major problem has been the lack of a resource for teachers providing general information about current HCE. This project will produce such a resource, and will also disseminate information through a non-technical web site and teacher workshops.