Doctoral Dissertation Research: Language Access and Gendered Mobility

该奖项支持对语言熟练程度与妇女在多语言环境中的经济和社会赋权之间关系的语言人类学调查。社会科学家发现，即使女性获得了更多的教育机会和经济机会，她们的流动性也可能受到限制。它们可能不仅受到一般社会和文化规范的阻碍，更特别是因为无法获得这些规范所产生的关键流动基础设施，例如用世界语言进行交流的能力。如果没有这些语言技能，它们就无法在全球化经济中充分发挥其潜力。该项目将考察女性如何在多种语言环境中进行协商，以及在何种条件下她们能够成功地掌握世界语言能力。这项研究将在阿拉伯联合酋长国(阿联酋)进行，因为它提供了一个超级多样化的跨国环境，在那里英语是沟通和商业交易的关键渠道。这项研究将由德克萨斯大学人类学博士生迪娜·A·拉比进行，她的导师是语言人类学家伊丽莎白·L·基廷博士。拉比将收集国内、社会、教育和商业环境中的数据，包括日常市场和服务交易、国际商业和交流的正式企业背景、家庭聚会、宗教会议和教室。她将采样和分析自然产生的语音；进行半结构化采访；进行语言、空间和声音映射；分析相关媒体；并查阅阿拉伯联合酋长国国家档案馆国家口述历史收集的材料。这项研究的发现将有助于在全球化背景下对性别的新维度进行理论推导。

This award supports a linguistic anthropological investigation into the relationship between language proficiency and women's economic and social empowerment in multi-language environments. Social scientists have found that even when women have increased access to education and economic opportunities, their mobility may be limited. They may be held back not only by general social and cultural norms but also more particularly by the lack of access to key mobility infrastructures, such as the ability to communicate in a world language, that these norms produce. Without these language skills, they are unable to reach their full potential in globalized economies. This project will look at how women negotiate multi-language situations and under what conditions they are successful in obtaining world language competencies.The research will be carried out in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because it provides a super-diverse multinational setting where English is the crucial conduit for communication and business transactions. The research will be conducted by University of Texas anthropology doctoral student Deina A. Rabie, who is supervised by linguistic anthropologist Dr. Elizabeth L. Keating. Rabie will collect data in domestic, social, educational, and commercial settings, including daily market and service transactions, formal corporate contexts of international business and communication, family gatherings, religious meetings, and classrooms. She will sample and analyze naturally occurring speech; conduct semi-structured interviews; carry out linguistic, spatial, and sonic mappings; analyze relevant media; and consult materials collected in the national oral history of the National Archives of the United Arab Emirates. Findings from this research will contribute to theorizing new dimensions of gender in globalized contexts.