This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. As such, it has both scientific and societal benefits, and it integrates research and education. While the goal of models in the language sciences is to provide universal explanations, the bulk of research is still conducted on English and other majority languages. Moreover, research in the language sciences -- despite growing awareness of the need for diversity -- is largely carried out by practitioners from majority language communities. This is problematic for two distinct reasons: findings are not representative of the increasingly diverse US population and neither are researchers, clinicians and educators. This 29-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program addresses these two issues by equipping 14 undergraduate students per year from under-represented communities with the skills and knowledge required to become successful in graduate programs focused on speech, language and communication sciences and in working with members of linguistic minorities. The program will include six key modules: (i) Establishment of a community of scholars through active participation in academic seminars, (ii) Mentored Scientific research, (iii) Research Ethics training, (iv) Research dissemination, (v) Participation in workshops to prepare a graduate school application portfolio, (vi) Organization of a translational conference for students, professionals and community leaders.
Recruiting students who use lesser-studied languages, spoken and signed, and non-mainstream varieties of English, and having them conduct research with Mentoring Faculty who are experts in the various fields related to language sciences (Theoretical Linguistics, First and Second Language Acquisition and Processing, Bilingualism, Speech, Language and Communication Sciences, Developmental and Acquired Disorders) applied to lesser studied varieties of English and other languages, constitutes an important step toward redressing the imbalance and ensuring that the field will benefit from the scholarly study of the linguistic and cultural diversity found in New York City. The program will benefit from both the tremendous ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Brooklyn and Queens, in the recruitment of student participants as well as project participants, and the nine mentors' state-of-the-art research facilities that include university-based laboratories such as Long Island University Downtown Brooklyn Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, Brooklyn College Linguistics Laboratory, the City University of New York Graduate Center Developmental Neurolinguistics Laboratory as well as off-campus sites including the Endangered Language Alliance, Haskins Laboratory and YVY Research Institute located in a Head Start program that serves 3,000 children speaking 15 distinct languages. This REU program thus serves two purposes: to involve undergraduates in research projects that can be expected to contribute publishable results and novel data sets that will be made available to the field through open-access websites, while simultaneously encouraging and preparing minority students to undertake graduate work on diverse languages and cultures. Overall, this REU site will prepare students to become accomplished researchers and practitioners in the Speech-Language-Communication Sciences equipped with the knowledge and skills to work with minority languages and cultures.
