Languages of Papua New Guinea

Social Network Analysis Applied to Language Planning in the Morehead District, Papua New Guinea

Statement of Responsibility:
Rueck, Michael J
Series Issue:
2011-037
Issue Date:
2011
Extent:
147 pages
Abstract:
Social network analysis is applied to three data sets collected from villages speaking languages of the Nambu Sub-Family in Papua New Guinea: reported speech similarity, bride exchanges, and basic vocabulary similarity. The bride exchange data led to substantially the same conclusions as the sociolinguistic data, supporting the proposition that sociolinguistic community structures are revealed in non-linguistic social data as well as they are in linguistic data. Furthermore, the proposition that the analysis of social networks will reveal groups of actors who will work well together in language development activities was supported by correspondence between this analysis and the activities of participants at the 2002 Morehead Alphabet Development Workshop. Additionally, analysis of the bride exchange data provided evidence, which the reported and measured linguistic data did not, that the Tonda Sub-Family of languages should also be included in a common language development program with the Nambu Sub-Family of languages. [In the interest of making this work available without further delay, no additional editing has been done. It has not been peer reviewed].
Publication Status:
Published
Content Language:
Work Type:
Nature of Work:
Part of Series:
SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2011-037
Entry Number:
41658