Collaborative Research: Sociolinguistic variation in post-Katrina New Orleans

Tulane University, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Abstract

What are the effects of displacement and migration on language? Population movement world-wide is at an all time high, and projections suggest that it will only increase over time. Improving our understanding of the social consequences of population movements can result in better policies for addressing their impacts. Places exist not just as physical locations, but as ideas in our minds about what it means to be authentically local; language in particular is a major factor in conceptions about locality and identity. New Orleans boasts a unique historic development and demographic distribution, in addition to featuring distinctive linguistic practices. A city with a long history of in-migration and diversity, since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 New Orleans has been undergoing a major demographic shift. The recovery process following the hurricane resulted in the displacement of locals, an influx of outsiders, and a number of sociopolitical developments that have accelerated ongoing processes of gentrification throughout the city. New Orleans is thus ideally situated for an examination of the linguistic effects of displacement and identity in a post-disaster context. This study represents the first large-scale, systematic study of sociolinguistic variation conducted in New Orleans. The investigators will conduct over two hundred interviews with lifelong residents of different ethnic backgrounds and neighborhood origins to create a corpus of linguistic data comprising the largest and most diverse sample ever collected in the city. They will then analyze the use of locally significant sociolinguistic variables (3 phonological, 10 syntactic, and 4 lexical) across these speakers. The researchers will examine how the use of these features correlates with ethnic identification and place affiliation. They will situate their interpretation of the results in terms of the sociopolitical and demographic shifts following Hurricane Katrina, proposing further hypotheses for how these factors influence language variation and change. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.