My ARIA project was called “Examining Word Order Variation in Kanien’kéha,” and I was supervised by Professor Jessica Coon. The overall goal of the project was to learn more about “free” word order patterns in Kanien’kéha, which can be affected by various information structural factors such as topic and focus.
I was interested in an ARIA project because I was excited about the opportunity to devote most of my summer to independent research. I have had a little bit of experience with individual research as I had the opportunity to take an independent study course last semester, which I really enjoyed, and I was interested in continuing that research in any way I could over the summer. The ARIA seemed like an amazing chance to do so, and I am extremely grateful for everything I have learned this summer throughout the internship.
My learning objectives for this project were to enhance my research skills, especially in data collection and research analysis. Part of my ARIA included language elicitation and discussion with first-language speakers of Kanien’kéha, which I had had some familiarity with during the school year, but I was looking forward to gaining even more experience with it. A secondary objective for this project was to strengthen my ability to communicate my research findings effectively through academic writing and the creation of the research poster.
This project included many highlights for me. One of my favorite moments during the ARIA was the opportunity to present some of my early findings from the research at a workshop hosted by the Kanien’kehá:ka OnkwawĂ©n:na RaotitiĂłhkwa Language and Cultural Center (KORLCC). The speakers at this workshop consisted of both Ŕ¦°óSMÉçÇř linguists and Kanien’kehá:ka community members, and the attendees were mostly second-language learners of Kanien’kĂ©ha enrolled in the adult immersion program at KORLCC. It was a wonderful opportunity to present some of my findings to the learners in the hopes that it might be interesting or helpful to them. Another highlight for me was getting to do some elicitation with first-language and highly advanced second-language speakers of Kanien’kĂ©ha, especially after having the opportunity to examine some written narratives in Kanien’kĂ©ha and being able to use those stories to investigate their speech.
On the other hand, there were a few challenges that I encountered during this project. Originally, part of the plan for the summer was to develop a questionnaire for speakers intended to produce different word orders, and to try to distribute that questionnaire across both first and second-language speakers of Kanien’kéha. However, it soon became clear that this would require a lot more time and effort than originally expected, and I also would have needed the support of other professors and graduate students who already had commitments for the summer. Additionally, there was already a lot of funding and attention going towards a Kanien’kéha Transcription Project this summer, run by two graduate students and involving many second-language learners of Kanien’kéha. The goal of this project is to have learners of Kanien’kéha transcribe episodes of the All Kanien’kéha Radio Talkshow, which has hours of conversational speech that could contain many clues about word order variation. Therefore, part of my ARIA instead involved helping out with the transcription project as much as I could, whether through writing up contracts, making guidelines, or taking meeting notes. While the transcription project is not yet over, I am hopeful that the results will supplement the research that I have done throughout this ARIA and will add to my Honours thesis, since naturalistic, conversational speech is an important piece of data that I am missing from my investigation into word order so far.
I believe this ARIA will shape my future career and education path in many ways. I am planning to pursue a PhD in linguistics after I graduate from Ŕ¦°óSMÉçÇř, and it will be a great asset to already have some experience with independent research before beginning a much bigger project in graduate school. More immediately, the data I have gathered about word order thus far will directly contribute to the Honours thesis that I will be writing this coming semester. I am immensely grateful to have a head start on this research.
Thank you to the Undergraduate Experiential Learning Opportunities Support Fund for their generous support of this project.
