Doctoral Dissertation Research: Linguistic Variation as a Marker of Ethnic Identity in High School Setting

博士论文研究：语言变异作为高中环境中种族认同的标志

• 批准号: 1749582
• 负责人: Marianna Di Paolo
• 金额: $ 0.93万
• 依托单位: University of Utah
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-02-01 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1749582&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Linguistic; Variation

The last half century has seen a major wave of migration from Pacific Island nations to primarily English-speaking countries like the United States. This population shift, often accompanied by a shift from heritage languages to English, can lead to the development of new ethnic identities and dialects of English. Yet little is known about how Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI) teens in the U.S. construct identity. This study will investigate how NHPI teens use linguistic and other behavioral resources to construct identity in the context of U.S. public high schools. Because strong ethnic identity has been shown to improve general well-being and scholastic achievement for minority students, the results will be a valuable resource for educators and community leaders. The research will also add to the understanding of how ethnicity relates to social network and other aspects of identity, contributing to the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural anthropology. Specific research questions include: (1) To what extent do the NHPI students in the study identify with specific ethnic groups, with a panethnic Pacific Islander group, and with the local population as a whole? (2) How do the density of the NHPI population and the general level of diversity affect identity formation? (3) What linguistic and nonlinguistic practices construct and reinforce each of these identities? The study will be conducted in a metropolitan area of Utah, the state with the highest percentage of NHPIs in the contiguous U.S. It utilizes ethnographic and sociolinguistic methods in a study of NHPI and non-NHPI students in two public high schools with different ethnographic compositions. Quantitative analysis will focus on phonetic features below the level of speaker awareness, such as the pronunciation of vowels in still and steel and of final consonants in long and was. The social meaning of variation will be sought in the ethnographic work, drawing on speaker perceptions and ideologies. In addition, the study tests predictions from cultural evolutionary theory about the importance of diversity and migrant population size on the use of ethnic markers.

上半个世纪，从太平洋岛国国家到主要讲英语的国家的主要移民浪潮。这种人口转变通常伴随着从遗产语言到英语的转变，可能会导致新的民族身份和英语方言的发展。然而，对于美国建构身份的夏威夷人和其他太平洋岛民（NHPI）青少年如何了解。这项研究将调查NHPI青少年如何使用语言和其他行为资源在美国公立高中的背景下构建身份。 由于已显示出强大的种族身份可以改善少数族裔学生的一般福祉和学术成就，因此结果将成为教育工作者和社区领导者的宝贵资源。 这项研究还将增加对种族与社会网络和身份其他方面之间如何关系的理解，从而有助于社会语言学和文化人类学领域。特定的研究问题包括：（1）研究中的NHPI学生在多大程度上与特定种族，一个太平洋岛民群体以及整个当地人口认同？ （2）NHPI人群的密度和多样性的一般水平如何影响身份形成？ （3）哪些语言和非语言实践构建和加强了这些身份中的每一个？ 这项研究将在犹他州的一个大都市地区进行，在美国连续美国，NHPI的百分比最高，它利用民族志和社会语言方法在对NHPI和非NHPI学生的研究中，两种具有不同人种学组成的公立高中。 定量分析将集中于低于扬声器意识水平的语音特征，例如静态和钢中的元音的发音以及长期且最终的辅音。 在人种学工作中，将寻求变异的社会意义，借鉴说话者的看法和意识形态。此外，该研究还测试了文化进化论的预测，这些理论关于多样性和移民人口规模对使用种族标志的重要性的重要性。