Doctoral Dissertation Research: Factors Contributing to Long-Term Stability in the Maintenance of Linguistic Boundaries

该项目培养研究生进行实证，科学实地考察的方法，探索社会和语言机制，产生和保持语言之间的语言独特性，有着悠久的接触历史。在一个语言和文化日益复杂的世界里，了解不同语言或语言变体的使用者接触时会发生什么，看看他们是否相互影响，或者语言差异是否被用来维持社会界限，这一点至关重要。大多数关于语言接触的研究都强调接触的“相互影响”方面，即接触中的语言变体相互融合并变得更加相似。本研究，相反，考虑的情况下，语言的边界已经稳定了至少500年，并试图发现语言和社会的原因，为什么这样的边界今天仍然存在。在密歇根大学布鲁斯曼海姆博士的指导下，Sandhya Narayanan将通过跟踪说话者如何使用这些语言，他们如何能够识别和评估他们之间的差异，以及什么结构机制使他们之间的边界永久化，来探索不同土著语言的说话者之间如何保持语言和社会边界。本研究调查了克丘亚语和艾马拉语之间的接触情况，这两种南美土著语言主要在秘鲁和玻利维亚使用。这些语言在西班牙征服之前就已经有了密切的联系，但直到今天仍然保持着它们的语言特色。这项研究验证了一个假设，即语言节奏时间结构的差异既保持了语言边界，又与行为特征相关，允许人们在一定距离内将对方识别为一种或另一种语言的使用者。该项目采用了一系列民族志和语言人类学的数据收集和分析方法，包括社会网络分析，参与者观察，访谈，语言生活史调查，文本分析，以及基于形态句法和互动的分析。这项研究的结果将告知南美土著人接触情况下出现的语言和社会过程的类型，并促进我们对语言意识形态和语言接触之间关系的理解。此外，这项研究还有很强的文献组成部分，因为尽管这两种语言在安第斯地区仍然广泛使用，但它们正处于急剧下降之中，因此濒临灭绝。

This project, which trains a graduate student in the methods of conducting empirical, scientific fieldwork, explores the social and linguistic mechanisms that produce and maintain linguistic distinctiveness between languages that have a long history of contact. In a world that has become increasingly linguistically and culturally complex, it is critical to understand what happens when speakers of different languages or linguistic varieties come into contact; to see whether they influence each other or whether linguistic differences are used to maintain social boundaries. Most research on language contact emphasizes the "mutual influence" aspects of contact, where the linguistic varieties in contact converge and become more like each other. This study, in contrast, considers a case in which linguistic boundaries have been stable for at least half a millennium, and seeks to discover the linguistic and social reasons why such a boundary persists today. Sandhya Narayanan, under the supervision of Dr. Bruce Mannheim of the University of Michigan, will explore how linguistic and social boundaries are maintained between speakers of different indigenous languages, by tracking how speakers use these languages, how they are able to recognize and evaluate differences among themselves, and what structural mechanisms perpetuate the boundary between them. This research investigates the case of contact between Quechua and Aymara, two Native South American languages spoken predominantly in Peru and Bolivia. These languages have been in intimate contact since before the Spanish conquest, but have maintained their linguistic distinctiveness through today. The research tests the hypothesis that differences in the rhythmic timing structures of the languages both maintain the linguistic boundary and - linked to behavioral features - permit people to identify each other at a distance as speakers of one or the other language. The project employs a range of ethnographic and linguistic anthropological methods of data collection and analysis including social network analysis, participant observation, interviews, linguistic life history surveys, textual analysis, and morphosyntactic and interaction based analysis. Findings from this research will inform the types of linguistic and social processes that come out of situations of contact among indigenous South Americans, and advance our understanding of the relationship between language ideologies and language contact. In addition, there is a strong documentation component to this research, because although both languages are still widely spoken in the Andean region, they are in the midst of precipitous decline, and so are endangered.