Doctoral Dissertation Research: An acoustic analysis of Spanish-K'ichee' (Mayan) bilingual intonation

本论文旨在研究危地马拉西语和玛雅语接触情况下双语言语形式的产生，危地马拉的语言处于不稳定的失语症状态。具体地说，它考察了语言水平不同的双语者在自然访谈和对照实验中产生对比焦点话语时，语调轮廓中的语音迁移或趋同。促使这项工作的主要问题是，双语者是否在韵律上强调K‘ichee’中的对比焦点成分，以及他们是否提供了从一种语言向另一种语言迁移或语调轮廓趋同的证据。本论文还探讨了西班牙语主导和凯西主导的双语者在韵律焦点标记上的差异，并考察了这两种双语者主导语言之间的互动模式。在追求这些研究目标的过程中，使用了多个任务来促使来自两个方言地区的双语者产生对比焦点：靠近西班牙语城市中心奎扎尔特南戈的坎特尔和更远的纳胡拉。本研究是对K‘ichee’和危地马拉西班牙语最早的声学分析之一，它对双语和接触西班牙语语调的文献做出了更广泛的贡献。此外，它还带来了对代表性不足的土著人口及其濒危语言的必要关注。最后，通过提供对双语人群交流规范和需求的洞察，它可能有助于为危地马拉各地的西班牙语-玛雅双语社区量身定做的教育方案的设计和实施。

This dissertation project seeks to investigate the production of bilingual speech forms in the contact situation between Spanish and K'ichee' (Mayan) in Guatemala, where the languages stand in a situation of unstable diglossia. Specifically, it examines the phonetic transfer or convergence in the intonation contours of bilinguals that differ in language proficiency, as they produce contrastive focus utterances in naturalistic interviews and in controlled experiments. The principal questions that motivate the work are whether bilinguals give any prosodic emphasis to a contrastive focus constituent in K'ichee', and whether they present evidence of transfer from one language to the other or of convergence of intonation contours. The dissertation also explores the differences in prosodic focus marking in Spanish-dominant versus K'ichee'-dominant bilinguals and examines the patterns of interaction between these bilinguals' dominant languages. In pursuing these research aims, multiple tasks are employed to elicit contrastive focus productions from bilinguals from two dialect regions: Cantel, which is close to the Spanish-speaking urban center of Quetzaltenango, and Nahualá, which is further removed. The present study presents one of the first acoustic analyses of K'ichee' and Guatemalan Spanish and it contributes more generally to the literature on bilingual and contact Spanish intonation. In addition, it brings needed attention to an underrepresented indigenous population and its endangered language. Finally, in providing insight into the communicative norms and needs of this bilingual population, it may aid in the design and implementation of educational programs tailored to communities of Spanish-Mayan bilinguals throughout Guatemala.