Base de données de recherche des TNO

Régions: North Slave Region

étiquettes: social sciences, aboriginal language, Tlîchô

Objectif(s): To conduct linguistic research about the structure and meaning of conditional clauses and counterfactuals in Tlicho.

Description du projet: The main objectives of this research are to: 1. conduct linguistic research towards a PhD thesis about the structure and meaning of conditional clauses and counterfactuals in Tlicho; and, 2. work towards updating the online Tlicho dictionary with new words, audio for existing words, and additional example sentences to existing entries. Participants will be asked to translate sentences from English to Tlicho after being given proper context. Participants will additionally be asked to tell a fictional story. This story may be based on well-known traditional stories: the participants will be asked to tell a story that has previously been published in books in Tlicho, and will be given illustrations from the published books as prompts to tell each part of the story. A second method includes storyboards - these are non-traditional stories that have been developed by linguists. The story will be told once as a whole by the Principal Investigator (PI) in English. And then the participants will be given illustrations as prompts to tell the story from their memory. A third method is using cards showing actions or characters, and asking the participants to create their own stories using these cards. Participants will be presented with a transcript of their sentences or stories and asked to confirm its accuracy. All sessions will be audio recorded and transcribed. In addition, the PI will be taking notes during the elicitation. All methods may be conducted in sessions with single participants or in sessions that include 2 or more participants. If participants agree, they may be photographed to document their participation. Each session will take approximately 1-2 hours, and each participant will be asked to participate in 7-10 sessions. Some sessions may take place at a later date or over the phone. In addition, with appropriate participants, some of the time will be dedicated to work towards the online Tlicho dictionary: recording audio for words that already appear on the online dictionary and confirming spelling and relevancy of new words to be added to the dictionary. If participants agree, some recordings of full sentences may also be uploaded to the dictionary to show the use of words within sentences. The research will include participation of speakers of the Tlicho language. The topic of the research is conditional sentences (that is, sentences with the word if: "If it rains, we will stay home"), which are a way of expressing more complex ideas and describing more complex situations about future plans or possibilities. The participants may be community researchers who have a great interest in their language. Some of them may be current students in the University of Victoria Masters in Indigenous Language Revitalisation. Participating in the project can highlight some aspects of their language and increase their appreciation of the mechanisms behind their language, as linguistic elicitation often involves reflections on the language. The results of this research will be published in a PhD thesis. The thesis will be available online after its publication. The results may also be published in academic linguistics journals. The results of this research will additionally be shown in conferences such as the Dene Languages conference, which is regularly attended by community members. If there is interest from the participants or other community members, after the research is complete, the PI will communicate the results directly to community members either by a meeting or a written report. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from July 29, 2016 to December 31, 2016.