Steps in Grammatical Turnover-Shift

摘要迈尔斯-斯科顿BCS-0424829语法转换的步骤在国家科学基金会的支持下，卡罗尔迈尔斯-斯科顿博士将在南非研究科萨语-英语双语者。这个项目的目标是研究从一种语言到另一种语言作为说话者的主要语言的过渡在多大程度上是系统的，在这个意义上，语言转换的步骤可以预测。 美国目前的语言构成包括许多移民谁不是英语的母语，但谁必须发展英语流利的工作，以举行有意义的工作在美国这个项目将促进双语的理解和英语学习的方式是有用的教育工作者谁服务于社区与最近的移民。该项目小组将收集远离家乡迁移到城市工业化地区的科萨语使用者的语言使用数据。南非的政治和社会变迁使其成为考察语言变迁过程的绝佳选择。由于语言情况非常复杂（目前有11种官方语言，包括9种班图语，加上南非荷兰语和英语），因此对土著居民来说，改用英语是一种中立和广泛有用的选择。如果在南非观察到的转换模式具有普遍的基础，那么对本项目中收集的数据的语法方面的分析可以推广到美国的双语环境中，该项目希望支持双语语音具有特定的、可预测的组织的假设。 这一主张是，当移民在发展英语流利性的过程中，他们的言语表现出两种类型的语法结构。 首先，他们在同一个句子中使用两种语言（母语和英语），这种现象被称为语码转换。 他们的双语讲话也表明一种语言的语法如何受到另一种语言的语法的影响;这就是所谓的趋同。该项目预计将确定具体的语法步骤，涉及语码转换和收敛，因为扬声器变得更加精通第二语言（如英语）。 了解这些步骤对美国教育工作者来说是有用的，因为这些步骤将指出在向移民儿童和成人教授英语时使用的最佳教学工具。 对于一般的外语教师来说，存在具体步骤的证据也是一个有用的工具。

Abstract Myers-Scotton BCS-0424829Steps in Grammatical Turnover-ShiftWith National Science Foundation support, Dr. Carol Myers-Scotton will study Xhosa-English bilinguals in South Africa. The goal of this project is to study the extent to which the transition from one language to another as a speaker's main language is systematic in the sense that the steps in language shift can be predicted. The current linguistic makeup of the United States includes many immigrants who are not native speakers of English, but who must develop working fluency in English in order to hold meaningful jobs in the U.S. This project will advance the understanding of bilingualism and the learning of English in ways that are useful for educators who serve communities with recent immigrants. The project team will gather data on language use among Xhosa speakers who have migrated to urban, industrialized areas far from their homes. The dramatic political and social changes in South Africa make it an excellent choice for examining the steps in language shift. The very complex linguistic situation (there are now 11 official languages, including nine Bantu languages plus Afrikaans and English) makes the shift to English a neutral and widely useful choice for the indigenous populations. If the patterns of shift observed in South Africa have a universal basis, the analysis of the grammatical aspects of data gathered in this project can be generalized to the bilingual climate in the United States.The project hopes to support the hypothesis that bilingual speech has a specific, predictable organization. The claim is that when immigrants are in the process of developing fluency in English, their speech shows two types of grammatical structures. First, they use two languages in the same sentence (their native language and English), a phenomenon known as code-switching. Their bilingual speech also shows how the grammar of one language is influenced by the grammar of the other language; this is called convergence. The project expects to identify specific grammatical steps involving code-switching and convergence as speakers become more proficient in a second language (e.g. English). Knowing about these steps can be useful to U.S. educators because the steps will point to the best type of teaching tools to use in teaching English to immigrant children and adults alike. Evidence that specific steps exist also would be a useful tool for foreign language instructors in general.