Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Descriptive Grammar of the Mosuo Language of Southwestern China

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Anthony Woodbury, Ms. Liberty Lidz will collect linguistic data on Mosuo for her doctoral dissertation. Mosuo is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language with roughly 40,000 speakers spoken in southwestern China. Mandarin is increasingly being spoken instead of Mosuo, particularly among children and people involved in the new tourist economy. The main research methodologies will be (i) the elicitation of syntactic, phonological, and lexical data, and (ii) the audio and video recording of naturally-occuring speech. Under the guidance of Dr. Woodbury, Ms. Lidz will analyze these data and produce a grammar, dictionary, and transcriptions of oral texts. The dissertation will provide a grammar of a virtually undocumented language, from a family about which the world has little data. Linguists want to understand what is common about all language as well as what unusual things can occur in a language. Data on Mosuo will help linguists to understand both of these. The Mosuo grammar (with sections translated into Chinese and glosses in Mosuo) will be an invaluable resource for native speakers. The audio and video recordings will provide an archive of speech patterns and cultural information such as folktales, information which is useful for native speakers, linguists, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. Lidz will also work with the Mosuo to create language teaching materials for community use. Language is a central part of culture and as such, it is crucial to document minority languages before they disappear, and to create pedagogical materials to deter language loss.