Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of How Cooperation Emerges in Multiethnic Contexts

人类学家早就发现，在充满活力的多民族和多文化环境中，很难建立社会凝聚力和持久的人际关系。如果不是这样，后果可能是不利的：以形成不良的社会关系为特征的环境可能与种族间冲突有关。相反，不同个人和群体之间的社会凝聚力和合作可以产生积极的社会影响（例如，这些环境可以成为重要的贸易中心）。这个项目训练一名研究生如何在语言和文化研究中进行严格的科学实地考察，并询问存在哪些语言人类学证据来解释语言和文化不同的个人和群体之间的合作是如何出现的。在密歇根大学朱迪思·欧文博士的指导下，尼古拉斯·斯威特先生将探索人际关系是如何在异质语言、动态环境中形成的。这个项目质疑存在什么样的社会语言学证据来解释如何在不同的个人和群体之间实现合作和凝聚力。这项研究发生在塞内加尔几内亚边境的一个以前被边缘化的地区，这个地区曾经以种族间冲突为特征，现在已经成为重要的贸易、运输、手工金矿开采和来自塞内加尔和西非各地的移民的场所。因此，它是社会语言学研究来自不同背景的多语使用者如何发展人际关系的一个新颖场所。这是一个两阶段的项目，比较农村环境和大型区域中心，目的是探索城市和农村中心之间交流实践的差异，以及获取贸易网络如何影响语言使用。通过对不同位置的个体之间用多种语言进行面对面对话的深入研究，该项目将能够调查种族和国家协会-通常被视为理所当然的类别-实际上是如何在口头互动中协商的。最后，这个项目有助于理解接近国家边界如何影响个人的语言实践。

Anthropologists have long established that social cohesion and enduring interpersonal relationships can be difficult to establish in dynamic multiethnic and multicultural environments. When they are not, the consequences can be adverse: contexts marked by poorly formed social relationships can correlate to interethnic conflict. Conversely, social cohesion and cooperation among diverse individuals and groups can have positive social impacts (for example, such contexts can become important trade centers). This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous scientific fieldwork in the study of language and culture, asks what linguistic anthropological evidence exists to explain how cooperation between linguistically and culturally diverse individuals and groups emerges. Mr. Nikolas Sweet under the supervision of Dr. Judith Irvine of the University of Michigan will how explore interpersonal relationships are formed in heteroglossic, dynamic contexts. This project questions what sociolinguistic evidence exists to explain how cooperation and cohesion is achieved among diverse individuals and groups. The research takes place in a formerly marginalized region in Senegal on the Guinea border, a context once characterized by interethnic conflict which has now become the site of significant trade, transportation, artisanal gold mining, and in-migration from all across Senegal and West Africa. As such, it is a novel site for a sociolinguistic study of how multilingual speakers from diverse backgrounds develop interpersonal relationships. This is a two-phase project that compares a rural context and large regional center, with the aim of exploring differences in the communicative practices between urban and rural centers, and how access to trade networks impacts language use. Through an in-depth study of face-to-face conversations in multiple languages between differentially positioned individuals, this project will be able to investigate how ethnic and national associations--categories that are too often taken for granted--are in fact negotiated in verbal interactions. Finally, this project contributes to understandings of how proximity to national borders affects individuals' linguistic practices.