Understanding Learning Mechanisms and Language Acquisition through Intergenerational Conversations in Southwestern Ojibwe, a Native American language

历史上，美国的土著语言是通过儿童、父母、祖父母和社区成员之间的代际互动在家庭和日常生活中习得的。然而，这种自然习得和代际传递的中断意味着，今天，许多土著语言是在学校或其他环境中习得的，而不是在家里。美国国会于1990年通过了《美洲原住民语言法案》，将承认美洲原住民语言的独特地位和重要性制定为政策。该项目将使用语言科学和学习科学来分析和理解儿童在这些其他环境中习得母语的语言模式和学习过程。这个项目使用森林漫步作为分析观点的一种方式，将流利的老年人和儿童学习者配对在一起。第二语言习得理论借鉴了英语和其他欧洲语言的学习者，但很少有来自美洲原住民语言的学习数据，这些语言通常在形态和动画等领域具有非常丰富的语法。本研究将分析交际实践中潜在的视角差异，重点关注土著语言的交际实践。来自语言学、认知学、教育学和学习科学领域的科学家将在这个跨学科项目上进行合作。文献语言学方法将创建一个带注释的多媒体语料库，供学习科学家在之前用英语进行的类似研究之后进行调查。更广泛的影响包括一个可公开获得的独特和有价值的语言习得数据语料库，对土著学者（在语言科学领域代表性不足）的培训，对语言振兴的支持以及对美洲土著语言代际传播的潜在积极影响。西南奥吉布语是一种濒临灭绝的阿尔冈琴语，它有非常复杂的多合成结构，这是一个在习得过程中没有记录的语法领域。研究结果表明，日常语言的研究对于理解类别和世界观至关重要，这项研究是已知的第一次尝试记录奥吉布韦语的代际语言，从而有助于更完整地记录该语言。通过记录成人与儿童的互动，该项目增加了对流利老年人的记录，同时还创建了与第二语言习得、学习科学和认知科学相关的数据集。该项目将采用英语学习科学的方法，这些方法有助于了解美洲土著老人和儿童理解自然世界的科学知识。虽然数据收集和过程是相似的，但这个项目的关键是使用Ojibwe而不是英语作为交流媒介。由此产生的语言数据和分析的语料库将有助于理解语言社会化中的跨文化差异和对自然世界的理解。

Historically, the indigenous languages of the United States were acquired in homes and everyday life through intergenerational interactions between children, parents, grandparents and community members. However, the interruption of this naturalistic acquisition and intergenerational transmission means that today, many Native languages are being acquired in schools or other environments, rather than the home. The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages. This project will use the language sciences and the science of learning to analyze and understand the linguistic patterns and learning processes of children acquiring a Native language in these other contexts. Using forest walks as a way to analyze points of view, this project will pair together dyads of fluent elders with children learners. Theories of second language acquisition draw on learners of English and other European languages, but there is very little learning data from Native American languages, which often have very rich grammar in areas like morphology and animacy. This study will analyze potential differences in perspective that are encoded in communicative practices, focusing on communicative practices in indigenous languages. Scientists from the fields of linguistics, cognition, education and learning science will collaborate on this interdisciplinary project. Documentary linguistics methods will create an annotated multimedia corpus, available to learning scientists for investigation following similar studies previously conducted in English. Broader impacts include a publicly available corpus of unique and valuable language acquisition data, the training of indigenous scholars (who are underrepresented in the language sciences), support for language revitalization and the potential positive impact on intergenerational transmission of a Native American language.Southwestern Ojibwe, an endangered Algonquian language, has extraordinarily complex polysynthetic constructions, an area of grammar underdocumented in acquisition. Following findings that suggest the study of everyday language is essential for understanding categories and worldview, this study is the first known attempt to document intergenerational language in Ojibwe, thereby contributing to a more complete record of the language. By recording adult-child interaction, the project augments the documentation of fluent elders, while also creating data sets relevant to second language acquisition, the science of learning and the cognitive sciences. This project will adopt methodologies from learning science in English that have contributed to scientific knowledge of the ways Native American elders and children understand the natural world. Although the data collection and process is similar, this project will crucially use medium of communication as Ojibwe rather than English. The resulting corpus of linguistic data and analyses will contribute to the ongoing effort to understand cross-cultural differences in language socialization and in an understanding of the natural world.