Linguistic Anthropological Description and Analysis of Ban Khor Sign Language

Ban Khor手语的语言人类学描述与分析

• 批准号: 0940956
• 负责人: Angela Nonaka
• 金额: $ 25.66万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-15 至 2014-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0940956&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Linguistic; Anthropological; Description; Analysis; Ban

This research project, directed by PI Angela Nonaka, is the US portion of a larger international collaboration that was conceived under the European Science Foundation's EUROCORES Programme, EuroBABEL. The full EuroBABEL project will study endangered sign languages in village communities, and involves a collaboration of researchers from five countries, including the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Israel. The U.S. project undertakes the linguistic anthropological documentation, description, and comparative analysis of Ban Khor Sign Language (BKSL), a language isolate used only in the village of Ban Khor, Thailand. BKSL is an 'indigenous' or 'village' sign language -- a language variety that spontaneously develops in small communities with large numbers of deaf people; labor-intensive economies; low intra-community educational and occupational differentiation between deaf and hearing people; and relatively positive attitudes toward sign language and deafness. This unusual language ecology currently distinguishes indigenous/village sign languages from other types of sign languages, e.g., 'national' or 'original' varieties.Little is known about the characteristic linguistic features of indigenous/village sign languages. Yet preliminary analysis indicates that BKSL, like other language isolates, preserves unusual linguistic features, and there is growing consensus that study of this language variety can enrich understanding of language typologies, historical linguistics, universal grammar, etc. Regrettably, BKSL and other indigenous/village sign languages are endangered. They often exhibit compressed life cycles that lend urgency to and pose challenges for language documentation and description as well as for language preservation and revitalization.The proposed study of BKSL is part of a collaborative endeavor to gather and evaluate linguistic anthropological data from indigenous/village sign languages around the world. More specifically, drawing on the combined expertise of hearing and Deaf linguists and anthropologists, this pioneering project creates standardized research protocols and employs systematic data collection to pursue detailed description of an under-documented and endangered sign language variety. By sharing their findings, the research partners will generate a robust, new data corpus that will allow for unprecedented cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study of indigenous/village sign languages, a critical step toward development of a formal typology of sign languages. Consistent with the goals of the sponsoring EuroBabel initiative, this international partnership will develop "better analyses based on endangered languages."

该研究项目由 PI Angela Nonaka 指导，是欧洲科学基金会 EUROCORES 计划 EuroBABEL 下构思的大型国际合作项目的美国部分。完整的 EuroBABEL 项目将研究乡村社区中濒临灭绝的手语，并涉及来自美国、英国、德国、荷兰和以色列等五个国家的研究人员的合作。美国项目对班霍尔手语（BKSL）进行语言人类学记录、描述和比较分析，班霍尔手语是一种仅在泰国班霍尔村使用的孤立语言。 BKSL 是一种“土著”或“乡村”手语——一种在拥有大量聋人的小社区中自发发展的语言变体；劳动密集型经济体；社区内聋人和听力正常者之间的教育和职业差异较小；对手语和耳聋的态度相对积极。这种不寻常的语言生态目前将土著/乡村手语与其他类型的手语（例如“民族”或“原始”品种）区分开来。人们对土著/乡村手语的语言特征知之甚少。然而初步分析表明，BKSL 与其他孤立语言一样，保留着不寻常的语言特征，并且越来越多的人认为，研究这种语言变体可以丰富对语言类型、历史语言学、普遍语法等的理解。遗憾的是，BKSL 和其他本土/村庄手语濒临灭绝。它们经常表现出压缩的生命周期，这给语言记录和描述以及语言保存和振兴带来了紧迫性和挑战。拟议的 BKSL 研究是收集和评估来自土著/村庄标志的语言人类学数据的合作努力的一部分世界各地的语言。更具体地说，利用听力和聋哑语言学家和人类学家的综合专业知识，这个开创性项目创建了标准化的研究方案，并采用系统的数据收集来对记录不足和濒临灭绝的手语品种进行详细描述。通过分享他们的发现，研究合作伙伴将生成一个强大的新数据语料库，这将允许对土著/村庄手语进行前所未有的跨语言和跨文化研究，这是发展手语正式类型学的关键一步。与赞助 EuroBabel 计划的目标一致，这一国际合作伙伴关系将开发“基于濒危语言的更好分析”。