Research

My dissertation research examines how language learners’ attitudes and emotions, or their affective stance, influence language learning within an indigenous language revitalization and reclamation (LRR) context. To investigate this question, I am conducting ethnographic interviews and observations within the Yurok LRR community. Through the collection and analysis of these materials, I explore how learners’ language beliefs and emotions, particularly the sources and manifestations of anxiety and motivation, impact their engagement with the language learning experience.

I have worked extensively on Miskitu inalienable possessive morphology, having identified a system of “non-canonical” possession (following Palmer 2007), in which an inalienable noun receives alienable possessive morphology in certain pragmatic contexts. Through this non-canonical possession of inalienable nouns in Miskitu, speakers modulate a lexical division between alienable and inalienable nouns by encoding the degree of control by the possessor over the possessum, as well as speaker perception of the possessive relationship. Many questions remain about the lexical, grammatical, and social conditions that license and restrict non-canonical possession in Miskitu, as well as speakers variation in the use and acceptance of this system.

I am also interested in the nature of language contact between Miskitu and other indigenous languages in the Moskitia of Nicaragua and Honduras, and how this contact may lead to shift in both linguistic repertoire and individual and community identity.

The Child Health and Indigenous Language Development (CHILD) working group is comprised of academic, professional, and community members from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds, including early childhood development, language acquisition, linguistics, public health, education, psychology, statistics, and indigenous studies, among others. With support from the National Science Foundation, in 2016 I convened this group at a workshop to explore current research concerning young learners (ages 0-5) in these challenging language contexts. The initial goal was to consider how ongoing practices not only promote language (re)learning but also provide extra-linguistic benefits influencing social, emotional and physical well-being among young children, their families and communities.

This meeting produced a white paper entitled Language Documentation, Revitalization, and Reclamation: Supporting Young Learners and Their Communities which discusses existing research and practices, and recommends next steps to support community actions to maintain, restore, and reclaim their languages. Through this overview of existing knowledge, our group aimed to lay a foundation for future research to share and enhance the outcomes and benefits of language documentation and revitalization practice.

One of the barriers to pursuing this work which we identified in the white paper is the limited opportunity to communicate and share research with allied researchers and practitioners across our diverse disciplines and professions. With institutional support from the Myaamia Center, our working group is developing a variety of tools to address these challenges, including creating a bibliography of relevant literature, a website to share information, and a listserv to support ongoing collaboration and resource-sharing. We are also planning future collaborative endeavors such as meetings and research projects.

In 2014-2015 I conducted research on language reclamation in Head Start and Early Head Start, summarized in my report Language Documentation, Revitalization and Reclamation: Supporting Young Learners and Their Communities. This research, which I performed as Senior Research Associate with the Office of Head Start’s National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, consisted of visits with Early Childhood language revitalization programs in 17 tribal communities around the US. In the course of each community visit I conducted classroom observations, and held individual and group interviews and meetings with tribal leaders, parents, teachers, administrators, and language speakers and learners. Through these interactions I learned about the community and school goals around the tribal language, and also the practices, successes, and challenges that the community had experienced, and how they could be better supported by the Office of Head Start and other federal agencies. The data I collected during these visits formed the basis for the above-mentioned report, which in turn informed a new Federal Policy Statement on supporting Dual Language Learners in Early Childhood programs.