Doctoral Dissertation Research: Documenting the Sisseton Dialect of Dakota, a Native American Language of South Dakota

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

A central axiom in the discipline of linguistics is that language change is a constant and ubiquitous characteristic of human language. While such change is inevitable, it is very often induced or accelerated by situations of language contact, which are increasingly common due to population mobility in a globalized world. This project will contribute to recent scholarship on grammaticalization, or linguistic change which enhances grammatical complexity as words referring to objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) develop into grammatical markers (e.g. affixes and prepositions). It will do so by scrutinizing dialect divergence within Dakota (dak), a Native American language experiencing extreme contact with -- and shift towards -- English. This dialect divergence holds critical insights for theories of language contact and change, which currently maintain that extreme forms of contact yield morphosyntactic simplification and interference (grammatical borrowing) from the dominant language. As recognized in The Native American Languages Act passed by Congress in 1990, languages spoken by indigenous peoples of North America have a unique status and significance. When documenting and analyzing the progression of grammaticalization and its role in differentiating related dialects, this project will adopt a collaborative research design that enhances the participation of Native Americans in science research and strengthens STEM educator development for Native American instructors. Other broader impacts include the professional development of a doctoral student, enhanced collaboration between a research university (University of Virginia) and a tribal college (Sisseton Wahpeton College), and the training of tribal citizens in documentary linguistics. This project will investigate the Sisseton dialect of Dakota, a highly endangered Siouan language spoken in several reservation communities scattered across the Northern Plains. Because of the historical depth and richness of scholarly work on Dakota dialects, this language presents a rare opportunity to examine dialect variation and development in Native America. Yet unlike other Dakota dialects, Sisseton speech has not received sustained scholarly attention. While the little research that does exist emphasizes lexical (word) and phonological (sound system) similarities between Sisseton and related dialects, this project will analyze the Sisseton dialect's recent and ongoing morphosyntactic (grammatical) divergence. The Sisseton dialect displays evidence of enhanced grammatical complexity that elaborates the head-marking characteristics of Dakota (i.e. making grammatical distinctions on phrasal nuclei) as opposed to borrowing the dependent-marking characteristics of English (i.e. making grammatical distinctions on modifiers). In order to enrich and extend our understanding of how language change unfolds amidst situations of contact, this project will produce an accessible and archived annotated audio-visual corpus of Sisseton speech. The project will also produce a dissertation, and descriptive and theoretical findings will be disseminated via journal articles. 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.