Doctoral Dissertation Research: Investigating communication at a distance in the context of changing communication habits

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

Sound-based, or phonological proxies for spoken language are attested worldwide, generally as whistled speech or messages played on musical instruments. However, research has identified a particular phonological proxy that appears to violate the general principles by which these proxies encode speech. This proxy occurs in the Abu' Arapesh [ISO 639-3 aah] language and the modalities used by Abu' speakers to communicate across distance, which include whistling, blowing conch shells, calling out, and playing flutes. This project will document and describe these linguistically novel Abu' proxies, used only in the Prince Alexander Mountains of Papua New Guinea, which may hold key insights into the nature of human language. The knowledge sharing between the United States and Papua New Guinea, identified by the U.S. State Department as a bilateral close friendship, will continue to be strengthened via the ties this project builds between the University of Virginia (UVA) and the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). The project will also undertake community development at the research site via small projects and hands-on training with electronic devices, computer programs, and basic principles of science, as well as support for students at UPNG, effecting "soft diplomacy" through scientific collaboration. Broader impacts also include the training of a dissertation student, the education of undergraduate students in a university course to be taught by the researcher, and the public archiving of fully transcribed recordings at UVA's Arapesh Grammar and Digital Language Archive. One aspect of the scientific importance of this study is the surprisingly sparse phonological resources used in the proxy forms of Abu': two pitches, two vowels, two consonants, and rhythm. Another aspect is its use not only by Abu' speakers but also by speakers of a neighboring, mutually unintelligible language Miya [ISO 639-3 wmo]. This is doubly surprising, as both languages are endangered and, according to global trends of language loss, phonological proxies should be at even higher risk than spoken language. Yet the proxies persist, even in the face of recently introduced cell phones, which could easily supplant their role facilitating long distance communication. This project asks: how do the Abu' proxies encode speech? What is their linguistic role, such that they persist? To answer, the researcher will spend eight months in the community in which Abu' proxies are still used, and visit neighboring communities where Miya is used, producing an audiovisual corpus of interviews, language lessons, word elicitations, and recordings of daily life. Recordings will be transcribed with the help of native speakers to achieve fine-grained linguistic analysis. The resulting case study of linguistic resilience will contribute valuable information to endeavors to ameliorate global language loss, and the resulting description of the structure of the proxies as they relate to Abu', with supporting evidence from Miya, will contribute valuable information to the study of human language. 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.