The Role of Language in the Cultural-Led Regeneration of Coastal Towns

ESRC博士后奖学金的主要目的是向学术和非学术受众传播我完成的博士论文的研究结果。本论文研究了在英国最东部的城镇所讲的东盎格鲁语变体洛斯托夫特英语中的元音合并和语音变化。这项研究主要集中在东安格利亚的特殊保留的音位之间的区别，中古英语元音对，如road-rowed，这在大多数其他品种的英语在世纪后期崩溃。基于30个社会语言学访谈的生产和感知数据的分析，长期的阻力合并是由于结构之间的不兼容性传入的形式和接收元音系统，而最近和突然发生的合并被认为是遵循重大的人口变化和流动性增加，导致自第一次世界大战以来洛斯托夫特的渔业下降。洛斯托夫特被发现是创新的语言选择，挑战模型的声音变化，预测方言水平通过波或反层次扩散发生。论文还对研究合并的公认方法提出了质疑。我采用方法创新的识别和量化的合并，介绍了一种新的方法来歧视的统计阈值随时间变化的数据，它有更广泛的应用超出了语言学领域。为了向学术界传播，论文将编写成四篇论文出版。两篇文章将集中在方言水平和东盎格鲁方言学的研究结果，而两个将介绍在论文中采用的方法创新。我将继续发展我的研究技能，并通过学习编程语言Python和获得机器学习经验来接受核心计算培训。这将使我能够与计算领域的研究人员合作，因为我寻求超越我自己的研究领域，为未来的跨学科出版物。我将通过扩大我的专业网络来促进这一目标，参加为我传播研究提供国家和国际平台的会议。研究奖学金的一部分时间将致力于为我未来的学术职位做好准备，因为我打算完善并向ESRC新研究者资助计划提交早期开发的资金提案的改进版本，同时还在剑桥的系里从事教学工作，作为进一步发展我的教学技巧的一种手段。该奖学金将包括在洛斯托夫特社区举办一系列公共讲习班，旨在促进社区自我价值，解决口音陈规定型观念和语言态度，并让年轻一代了解他们的遗产和历史。这些讲习班将支持有关洛斯托夫特再生的地方政策议程，这些议程以文化为主导，在很大程度上依赖于利用其海洋遗产。这些事件将通过分析在博士期间通过社会语言学访谈收集的定性数据来了解，这些数据目前尚未分析。该分析可以为政策制定者提供有关人们在恢复沿海社区所面临的社会经济挑战的具体数据，因为我打算编写一份关于阶级，教育，性别和年龄对语言态度和意识形态的影响的报告，该报告可用于Lowestoft背景下的经济，社会和移民成果。总的来说，奖学金提供了一个独特的机会，以确保我的工作达到学术和非学术观众，同时让我进行额外的培训，发展我的研究技能和技术，这将最终为我在学术界的成功职业生涯做好准备。

The primary aim of the ESRC Postdoctoral fellowship is to disseminate the findings of my completed PhD dissertation to both academic and non-academic audiences. The dissertation investigates vowel mergers and sound change in Lowestoft English, an East Anglian variety spoken in the UK's easternmost town. The study focusses primarily on East Anglia's exceptional retention of a phonemic distinction between the Middle English vowels in pairs such as road-rowed, which collapsed in most other varieties of English in the late 17th century. Based on analyses of production and perception data from 30 sociolinguistic interviews, long-term resistance to the merger is attributed to structural incompatibility between the incoming form and the recipient vowel system, while the recent and abrupt onset of the merger is argued to follow significant demographic shifts and increased mobility, resulting from the decline of Lowestoft's fishing industry since World War I. Lowestoft is found to be innovative in its linguistic choices, challenging models of sound change that predict dialect levelling occurs via wave or counter-hierarchical diffusion. The dissertation also casts doubt on received methods for studying mergers. I employ methodological innovations for the identification and quantification of mergers, introducing a novel approach to the discrimination of statistical thresholds across time-varying data, which has broader application beyond the field of linguistics. For dissemination to academic audiences, the dissertation will be developed into four papers for publication. Two articles will focus on the findings regarding dialect levelling and East Anglian dialectology, while two will introduce the methodological innovations that were employed in the dissertation. I will continue to develop my research skills and undergo core computational training by learning the programming language Python and gaining experience in machine learning. This will allow me to collaborate with researchers in computational fields, as I seek to move beyond my own research area for future cross-disciplinary publications. I will facilitate this goal by expanding my professional network, attending conferences that provide both national and international platforms for me to disseminate research. Part of the research fellowship time will be dedicated to preparing me for future academic positions, as I intend to refine and submit an improved version of an earlier developed funding proposal to the ESRC New Investigator Grant scheme, while also undertaking teaching in the department at Cambridge, as a means of further developing my pedagogical techniques.To reach non-academic audiences, the fellowship will include a series of public workshops in the Lowestoft community, designed to promote community self-worth, address accent stereotyping and language attitudes, and engage younger generations with their heritage and history. These workshops will support local policy agendas concerning the regeneration of Lowestoft, which are culture-led and largely dependent on exploiting its maritime heritage. These events will be informed by analysis of the qualitative data gathered through sociolinguistic interviews during the PhD, which remain unanalysed at present. The analysis can provide policymakers with concrete data on the socio-economic challenges faced by people in recovering coastal communities, as I intend to produce a report on the impact of class, education, gender and age on language attitudes and ideology, which can be used in relation to economic, social, and migration outcomes within the context of Lowestoft. Overall, the fellowship provides a unique opportunity to ensure my work reaches both academic and non-academic audiences, while allowing me to undertake additional training that develops my research skills and techniques, which will, ultimately, prepare me for a successful career in academia.