Anna Babel, a professor of Hispanic linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, College of Arts and Sciences, The Ohio State University, has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad (FRA) Fellowship by the U.S. Department of Education, International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office.
Babel will conduct research in Bolivia and Spain for four months examining the topic “Sociolinguistic Awareness Among Bolivian Migrants to Spain.” Babel’s project addresses the question of how adults develop awareness of linguistic differences through life experiences such as migration and mobility. She asks how Bolivian migrants who have lived in Spain become aware of differences between their own dialect(s) and European Spanish(es).
Spain is home to one of the largest populations of Bolivian migrants in the world, and Bolivian Spanish differs from European Spanish at every level of linguistic structure due to long-term contact with Quechua. Bolivian migrants are often racialized in Europe, and language is one highly salient aspect of societal identification and differentiation.
“I will collect interview data that centers migrant perspectives to examine how social, linguistic, and cognitive factors combine in second dialect awareness and acquisition. I will use multiple methodological approaches to investigate how host and home country speech is represented by Bolivians who remained in Spain versus those who returned to Bolivia, and how bilingualism in Quechua and contact with Catalan affect awareness of dialect differences,” said Babel. “The proposed research will contribute to our understanding of how social categories form and become more detailed, how links to linguistic forms strengthen or weaken, and how awareness of one’s own variety grows and changes through life experiences.”
Faculty conduct research abroad in modern foreign languages and area studies to improve their skill in languages and their knowledge of the culture of the people of these countries through the FRA grant. Nationwide across all disciplines only 25 Faculty Research Abroad Fellowships were awarded.
The Office of International Affairs administers the Fulbright-Hays program for Ohio State, and grant competitions are held annually. Faculty interested in applying for the award must contact Fulbright-Hays program director, Joanna Kukielka-Blaser.