"I believe that my work can provide minority language users with new tools for language preservation and revitalization efforts. I hope to contribute to protecting the world's linguistic diversity."

Brook Hefright

PhD Candidate, Linguistics
U.S. Department of State Student Fulbright Fellowship

Brook Hefright is conducting fieldwork in southwest China's Yunnan Province. He is working with speakers of the Bai language to understand how perceptions of language contact with Chinese influence linguistic practices and structure in Bai. He has become particularly interested in multiple traditions of written representation of the Bai language, including bilingual representation using Chinese characters in a traditional literary genre.

During his first semester in Yunnan, Brook also led a series of discussions on contemporary sociolinguistic theory and research methods for graduate students in linguistics at Yunnan University in Kunming. These exchanges with young Chinese scholars have been a particularly rewarding part of his research experience, and Brook looks forward to watching the next generation of Chinese linguists explore China's linguistic diversity and sociolinguistic complexity.