U of NM researchers get nearly $500k from feds to study this and that

(The Center Square) – The University of New Mexico Department of Linguistics recently got a grant worth $494,659 from the National Science Foundation for a project called, “Addressee effects in demonstrative systems across bilingual communities.”

UNM’s Department of Linguistics will house the three-year project. Professors Naomi Shin and Rosa Vallejos-Yopán will lead the project, along with Amalia Skilton from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

The project will examine three bilingual communities: Secoya-Spanish and Ticuna-Spanish bilinguals in the Amazon and Spanish-English bilinguals in New Mexico. Both Ticuna and Secoya are endangered Indigenous languages.

“Receiving this NSF grant highlights the importance and benefits of collaborative work, which is something that we cherish and prioritize in our academic community of linguists at UNM,” Naomi Shin said in the release. “Through this NSF grant, we are able to expand the scope of our work and, as such, we learn more about languages and bilingualism across communities, and we engage in more community outreach efforts, all while strengthening and building our academic community here at UNM.”

The project wants to find specific ways these languages differ and the reasons for those differences.

“Demonstratives like this/that in English and este/ese/aquel in Spanish provide an excellent tool for advancing these aims because these types of words exist in all languages to manage attention, which is a general function of language,” the release said.

Each of the languages in the study has differing demonstrative systems. For example, Ticuna has four demonstratives, Secoya has three, and English has two. Plus, some variations of Spanish have three demonstratives, while others have two.

“This grant brings two endangered Amazonian languages into the linguistic debate, which improves our ability to theorize about how human languages work in general,” Rosa Vallejos-Yopán said in the release. “However, to successfully work with endangered languages, it is imperative that we build long-term, collaborative relationships with the communities where we conduct our research. What makes me particularly happy is that this grant creates more opportunities to train students with a community-centered approach.”

The study plans to answer how the number of available demonstratives in a language impacts word selection and how bilingualism impacts a language user’s use of demonstrative systems.

The researchers see the selected areas as prime testing grounds to answer these questions.

“In New Mexico, Spanish-dominant and English-dominant bilinguals abound,” the release explained. “In the Ticuna region, Ticuna-Spanish bilingualism is widespread, but most speakers remain Ticuna-dominant. In the Secoya region, bilingualism is emerging: most elders are monolingual in Secoya, while younger people vary in Spanish proficiency. Comparing these communities advances our understanding of how language dominance predicts the transfer of linguistic features from one language to another.”

The project will contribute to methods of studying bilingualism globally, the release said. It also hopes to benefit the communities in question by creating workshops, language materials designed for educators, and materials in newsletters and articles to make the team’s research more accessible to these communities in question.

Shin has 25 years of experience researching Spanish-English bilingualism in the United States, while Vallejos-Yopán has 26 years of experience working with Amazonian communities. Plus, Skilton has 11 years of fieldwork experience in Amazonia studying Indigenous languages.

“Shin, Vallejos-Yopán, and Skilton have all published extensively on their respective topics,” the release said. “In addition, Vallejos-Yopán and Skilton have contributed to the documentation of endangered languages and created various types of archival collections.”

The team has received funding from various agencies to help them secure the NSF grant. Those entities include: ADVANCE at UNM, UNM’s Latin American and Iberian Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the McCune Charitable Foundation.

Shin and Vallejos-Yopán look forward to hosting the project in UNM’s Department of Linguistics because of the department’s renowned scholarship in usage-based linguistics.

They hope this grant helps attract bright students from across the world and New Mexico, especially non-white ones, the release said.

“Given that New Mexico is home to many languages and many bilinguals, it is the perfect location for bilingualism research and for engaging students,” the release said.