Linguistics Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/3071

Browse

Browsing Linguistics Theses and Dissertations by Author "Gildea, Spike"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Indigenous Methodologies in Linguistics: A Case Study of Nuu-wee-ya' Language Revitalization
    (University of Oregon, 2021-11-23) Hall, Jaeci; Gildea, Spike
    Doing linguistic research for the purpose of language revitalization, academic inclusion, and social justice fundamentally changes the perspective, questions, and goals of the work. Framing this research in a traditional linguistic model does not best convey the point and the beauty of findings for community members. This is partly due to the ‘lack’ associated with archival work: because the archival data is limited and there are no (or limited) speakers to confer with, findings are often incomplete, even minimal, and rarely sufficient to justify a rigorous linguistic analysis. Indigenous knowledge is the idea of relationality, that everything is related (Wilson, 2008). This concept is central to being indigenous and shifts the focus of research from advancing the understanding of science through focus on the abstraction of patterns to advancing understandings of how to support all of creation. Indigenous knowledge is, by itself, a valid and complete way of perceiving and learning about the world. This can be evidenced through the close relationships indigenous people have with the environment and through the rich complexity of ceremonies. Using an indigenous model, I focus on the relationship between the research and community needs and knowledge. I incorporate indigenous intellectual models to investigate language revitalization, yielding a complex research model that approaches linguistic analysis with a mind to the priority of different components of language revitalization. In this model, the central components are planning, processing, analysis, and use. Within this model, the focus shifts from what is missing to the wealth of the knowledge that is. This dissertation links the linguistic work done to an indigenous framed research model and illustrates how this approach shifts the perceived ‘lack’ of knowledge to perceived riches. This Language Revitalization approach carries and honors our indigeneity and supports social justice for all indigenous people, including my own ancestors.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    L2 Motivation in Language Revitalization Practice
    (University of Oregon, 2022-10-26) Taylor-Adams, Allison; Gildea, Spike
    This dissertation investigates the initial and ongoing motivations of language revitalization practitioners. This study extends our understandings of language revitalization from the programmatic and sociological levels to the level of the individual practitioner. It also extends theory in L2 motivation into a largely unstudied language learning context. I primarily engage with the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005) and Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) to frame the findings, as well as drawing on Ushioda’s (2009) ‘person-in-context relational view’ of L2 motivation. The findings in this study arise from rigorous, inductive qualitative analysis of individual practitioner voices and experiences. I propose a model for conducting applied research that centers principles of respect, relationality, and reciprocity with language communities and community members. Built on this model, and with careful attention to interview and transcription methods, this study includes data from interviews with 28 revitalization practitioners as well as qualitative data from the Global Survey of Language Revitalization Effort (Peréz Báez et al., 2019). Key themes in the findings from these sources include: Goals, that is, practitioners’ diverse goals and trajectories towards those goals; Relationships, meaning the role of relations and relationship-building in sustaining motivation and effort; and Time, including how motivation and effort vary across periods of time, as well as how practitioners describe being motivated by perspectives on the past, experiences in the present, and visions of the future. From these findings I propose practical suggestions for practitioners looking for strategies to sustain motivation, and theoretical implications for our understanding of L2 motivation in general. Language revitalization is not an easy task; it requires significant effort on the part of many individuals, most of whom recognize they will not get to see the results of their work in their lifetimes. Individuals who learn these languages as second languages face enormous odds with enormous determination. My hope is that this dissertation might, in some small way, help those individuals stay motivated in their journeys, and might contribute in some small way to a future where all people have the chance to speak their languages.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Predication in Rarómuri (Urique Tarahumara)
    (University of Oregon, 2014-06-17) Valdez Jara, Yolanda; Gildea, Spike
    The Rarómuri, or Urique Tarahumara (UT), language belongs to the Taracahitian sub-branch of the Uto-Aztecan family. There are five major linguistics variants called Tarahumara, all spoken in Chihuahua state in northern Mexico. This dissertation is an introduction to how both verbal and nonverbal predicates are formed in the language of the Rarómuri people, as spoken in Urique, Chihuahua. The central contribution of this dissertation is found in Chapter IV on nonverbal predication and Chapter V on verbal predication, and the work opens with three chapters: Chapter I is the introduction, Chapter II introduces the orthography and some of the most common morphophonological processes, and Chapter III sketches the morphology and syntax of the Noun Phrase. Chapter VI concludes the dissertation with a discussion of directions for future research. This dissertation is based on a combination of recorded texts and elicited material. The texts provided the natural language where the constructions in question occur in actual use, providing the motivation and signaling directions for elicitation, which then allowed the understanding of the intricate morphological patterns. Both types of data material are invaluable for the researcher, and I include examples of both when possible. One point of typological interest in UT is the verbal indexation system for subjects in the past tense, which includes suffixes for 3SG/PL and 1PL, zero marking (fused with the tense suffix) for 2PL, and verbal enclitics for 1SG and 2SG. The verbal enclitics also occur marking future tense verbs. The verbal enclitics for 1SG and 2SG can also mark object, and alone among core arguments, the 1SG free pronoun object must take a locative suffix. Looking at person marking and object case, it appears that UT has an incipient hierarchical system, with 1SG > 2SG > 1PL/2PL/3. Another of the most salient features of UT is the morphophonology. It is common in UT for a morpheme to present several allomorphs, and some, like the Potential Future, can have up to 9 allomorphs. Some of this allomorphy is phonologically conditioned, other allomorphy is lexically conditioned, and other allomorphy is clearly suppletive. The interaction of these conditioning factors is possible.