The Social Networks of Ethnic Minority Group Speakers in Washington State

本研究探讨了社会网络构成、种族和语言结构之间的联系。口语的使用反映了许多因素，包括对声音产生和感知的认知限制，言语社区的成员身份，以及文化习俗等。这项研究模拟了这些因素与参与地区性发音变化或抵制变化、使用主流英语和当地语言社区使用的传统语言变体、或使用单一语言变体的民族英语之间的相互关系。研究地点是华盛顿州。与美国许多地方不同的是，在美国的许多地方，种族群体定居在具有相对孤立的社会网络的小社区中(导致了著名的东海岸和内陆北的种族飞地)，太平洋西北部长期以来一直以地区和社会流动为特征。“社区”的概念本身是复杂的，但需要更好地理解，因为非白人流动个人在美国人口中占更大的比例。这项研究还使用基于实践的方法，而不是基于分配的方法来确定种族群体成员。北美语言科学的普遍做法是主要从语言社区的多数族裔群体中抽样。所采取的假设是，非白人说话者不参与区域声音的变化，而是嵌入到由共同的种族认同定义的单独的语言社区中。尽管这种假设在一定程度上是正确的，但事实证明，这种假设过于简单化了。有学术研究表明，说话者对民族语言形式的使用，与其说是受种族的影响，不如说是受社交网络构成的影响。但复杂的社会模式需要更好地融入语言研究。首先，种族已经与种族混为一谈。种族(外表或遗传)，而不是种族(文化遗产、习俗和感知的从属关系)被用作构建研究样本的初始工具，导致了关于言语社区成员的先验决定。这个项目利用了情感网络的局部性、同质性(基于相似性的从属关系)、网络范围和参照网络的社会网络测量。语言数据来自元音系统记录和语音产生的声学线索的测量，重点是与主流方言和当地方言有关的已知特征集。口语数据为跨方言测试听者对细粒度、随时间变化的声音差异的敏感度提供了刺激。其结果是一个与非太平洋西北地区流动人口相关的参与语言变化的模式，有助于方言演变和种族间接触的社会语言学理论化，以及听话者在感知语音变化时使用社会信息。这项研究涉及华盛顿大学和位于华盛顿州Toppenish的Yakama First Nation土地上的传统大学的研究人员之间的合作。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research investigates the linkages between social network composition, ethnicity and linguistic structure. Spoken language use reflects many factors, including cognitive constraints on production and perception of sound, speech community membership, and cultural practices, among others. This study models the interrelationships between these factors and participation in regional sound changes or resistance to change, bilectal use of mainstream English together with a heritage language variety used in the local speech community, or monolectal use of an ethnic variety of English. The study site is Washington state. Unlike many places in the United States where ethnic groups settled into small communities with relatively insular social networks (resulting in the famous ethnic enclaves of the East coast and Inland North), the Pacific Northwest has long been characterized by regional and social mobility. The notion of "community" itself is complex, but requires better understanding as non-white, mobile individuals become a larger part of the US population. This study also uses practice-based, rather than assignment-based methods for determining ethnic group membership. General practice in the language sciences in North America has been to sample primarily from majority-ethnicity groups in a speech community. The assumption taken has been that non-white speakers do not participate in regional sound changes, but are embedded in separate speech communities defined by shared ethnic identity. While partly true, this assumption has been shown to be a vast oversimplification. There is scholarship showing that speakers' use of ethnolectal forms is not predicted by race as much as by social network composition. But complex social models need to be better-integrated into linguistic research. Race has been conflated with ethnicity, for one thing. Race (physical appearance or genetic heritage), rather than ethnicity (cultural heritage, practice, and perceived affiliation) has been used as an initial tool for constructing research samples, leading to a priori determinations about speech community membership. This project utilizes social network measures of localness of affective network, homophily (similarity-based affiliation), network range, and referential network. Linguistic data are drawn from vowel system recordings and measures of the acoustic cues to phonetic production, focusing on sets of features known to be associated with mainstream as well as local dialects. Spoken data provide the stimuli for cross-dialect testing of listener sensitivity to fine-grained, time-varying differences in sound. The result is a model of participation in linguistic change relevant for mobile, non-white Pacific Northwest speakers, contributing to sociolinguistic theorization of dialect evolution and interethnic contact, as well as listeners' use of social information in the perception of phonetic variation. The study involves collaboration between researchers at the University of Washington, and Heritage University, located on Yakama First Nation lands in Toppenish, Washington.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.