Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 7.13 History and Social Sciences
Presentation #1 Title
An Agrarian Linguistic Metric of Central Appalachian Cultural Shift
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The perception of a dominant farming lifestyle in areas of the country like central Appalachia, particularly in eastern Kentucky, is becoming less based in reality. At a national level, agriculture made up 21% of the labor force in 1930, though since the early 1990s, it has only accounted for 2%. Since 1981, 17,000 farms have closed their doors in Kentucky. Although Kentucky still ranks 4th nationally in agricultural output, the image of farm life is not an accurate picture of the status of agriculture in the state. Despite the decrease in dependence on farming, it appears that residents of central Appalachia have maintained aspects of their agrarian identities. In this paper, we explore how linguistic analysis can be used as an effective way of delineating cultural shift over time. The analysis involves the comparison of oral history transcripts from people from two different generations: one set of interviews with residents of eastern Kentucky born before World War II and another set of interviews with “Generation Y” people from the same region. The goal is to quantify this data using corpus methods to support the idea that Appalachia has maintained its rural identity but has lost much of the agrarian aspect. By using a list of agrarian terms, we chart the frequency of agrarian references in these interviews, in order to create measurable data that reflects the degree of change that has taken place in this region. Preliminary results suggest that this shift has begun.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jennifer Cramer is a faculty member in the Linguistics Program and the Appalachian Studies Program at the University of Kentucky. She specializes in sociolinguistics, with an emphasis on the study of language in Kentucky.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Luke McAnally is a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky Linguistics Program.
An Agrarian Linguistic Metric of Central Appalachian Cultural Shift
Harris Hall 130
The perception of a dominant farming lifestyle in areas of the country like central Appalachia, particularly in eastern Kentucky, is becoming less based in reality. At a national level, agriculture made up 21% of the labor force in 1930, though since the early 1990s, it has only accounted for 2%. Since 1981, 17,000 farms have closed their doors in Kentucky. Although Kentucky still ranks 4th nationally in agricultural output, the image of farm life is not an accurate picture of the status of agriculture in the state. Despite the decrease in dependence on farming, it appears that residents of central Appalachia have maintained aspects of their agrarian identities. In this paper, we explore how linguistic analysis can be used as an effective way of delineating cultural shift over time. The analysis involves the comparison of oral history transcripts from people from two different generations: one set of interviews with residents of eastern Kentucky born before World War II and another set of interviews with “Generation Y” people from the same region. The goal is to quantify this data using corpus methods to support the idea that Appalachia has maintained its rural identity but has lost much of the agrarian aspect. By using a list of agrarian terms, we chart the frequency of agrarian references in these interviews, in order to create measurable data that reflects the degree of change that has taken place in this region. Preliminary results suggest that this shift has begun.
