REU Site: Increasing Native American perspectives in field and experimental linguistics

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. The aim of this project is to make STEM and higher education more accessible to and inclusive of American Indian/Alaska Native students through a research experience that relates directly to a topic of particular interest to American Indian/Alaska Native communities – the revitalization and scientific study of Native languages.

American Indian/Alaska Native students are greatly underrepresented in academia and this situation has remained virtually unchanged for decades. A growing body of research points to the importance and need for higher education to increase its cultural competency as a critical strategy for becoming accessible to underrepresented groups, such as American Indian/Alaska Native students.

Conversely, academia cannot achieve excellence without perspectives from a diversity of backgrounds to inform and improve it. Thus, the broader impact of this REU site is manifold: It uses a culturally informed and competent approach to introduce American Indian/Alaska Native students to linguistics and the various research disciplines with which linguistics intersects; in doing so it contributes towards an increase in participation of American Indian/Alaska Native students in higher education and research; and as a result, this project contributes towards strengthening academia broadly through a diversification of perspectives.

Through the REU site, participants complete research rotations in multiple areas of linguistics, specifically focusing on experimental linguistics and language documentation and revitalization. The program embraces a usage-based study of language within a community-centered cross-disciplinary approach, which is relatively novel in undergraduate linguistic training.

REU participants are exposed to the full range of skills necessary to conduct research in linguistics. These research rotations are supplemented with coursework in topics on descriptive and experimental linguistics and academic and professional development workshops. The workshops focus on providing participants with skills to initiate careers in STEM, as well as pursuing master's and Ph.D. degrees in linguistics or related fields.

The fundamental goal of this work is to help students become active agents of innovation in STEM through linguistics, seeking to break down disciplinary silos and reprioritize the societal value of science.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.