Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 6.09 Language: Language and Identity in Appalachia
Session Abstract or Summary
This session will explore the intersection of language and Appalachian identity. Speakers use a variety of linguistic features, from intonation to discourse patterns to vocabulary, to express their ties to the region.
One of the many ways that people express a particular identity is through language. In particular, use of specific features in speech can index locality and a local identity, as described in Eckert (2000), Bucholtz and Hall (2004), Kiesling (2005), and Johnstone and Kiesling (2008) among others. Speech is constantly variable, as each utterance is always slightly different; however, patterns of linguistic behavior emerge and are present in every individual. Many times, these particular patterns of variation are correlated with some type of socio-demographic reality, such as region, class, or ethnicity. In this panel, we will explore some of the features and patterns that are used in Appalachia and the diaspora to reflect an orientation toward and an identity with the region. It is necessary to note that particular linguistic features do not in and of themselves carry social information. The patterns of use by certain individuals that belong (or want to belong) to particular groups cause a particular feature to acquire a social meaning, i.e. associated with Appalachia. This panel will explore how speakers use intonation, stance, and vocabulary to reflect their Appalachian identity and connection.
Presentation #1 Title
Mountain Intonation: Using Pitch in Appalachian Englishes
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper shows how intonation (i.e. changing pitch across a sentence) is a defining feature of Appalachian English (AE), and how it differentiates AE from other types of American English. This study analyzes the intonation from sociolinguistic interview data from 24 (12 male, 12 female) Appalachian English (AE) speakers from northeast Tennessee. These results were compared to other American English varieties with data from demographically comparable Southern and Mainstream speakers. In addition, the AE speakers were categorized by local orientation and ‘rootedness’ based on responses to questions about feelings toward the local region and responses to a survey instrument. Results show that overall the highest point of the pitch aligned differently in the syllable in this variety of AE than in other varieties. Additionally, these Appalachian speakers appear to have greater change in pitch (from the minimum to the maximum local pitch) than other Southern and Mainstream American English speakers. Moreover, these results indicate that those speakers who have a greater local orientation and rootedness appear to have the greatest excursion and most different pitch alignment. This finding suggests that pitch might be a socio-pragmatically productive means for speakers to demonstrate orientation toward and to reflect covert prestige associated with a stigmatized region.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Paul Reed is a PhD candidate at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on the sociophonetic variation and change in the English varieties of the American South, particularly of the Appalachian region. His ongoing dissertation work centers on the intersection of monophthongization, intonation, and place-based identity in East Tennessee.
Presentation #2 Title
Interactive Stances in Ethnographic Fieldwork with Urban Appalachian Migrants
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Analysis of stance, or self-presentation in talk, provides a concrete way to assess speaker positioning with respect to topics of conversation and conversational partners. Stance provides a window into worldview and attitudes, at least as presented during fleeting moments of time during conversation. Stance also provides a vehicle through which to look at the collaborative nature of conversation through the ways in which speakers respond to each other’s stances. This paper provides an analysis of stances from a corpus of urban Appalachian migrants and their descendants in the Detroit Metropolitan collected using ethnographic fieldwork methods. My own Appalachian origins helped me locate participants, establish a unique rapport with participants, and (unknown to me at the time of fieldwork) contributed to the presentation of selves (both my own and the participants) through stance work in the interviews. This paper considers three categories of stance: authoritative, evaluative, and interactive—with particular attention to interactive stances between myself as an Appalachian fieldworker and the urban Appalachian participants. I code interactive stances as either affiliative or distancing. Affiliative interactive stances show alignment between interlocuters and can build common ground. Distancing interactive stances indicate that there is a lack of alignment for a particular stance object (the subject of the stance in question). I conclude that analysis of stance in this unique ethnographic context reveals that Appalachian communities are not necessarily geographical but reflect a connection to the homeland that is not abandoned during the migration experience.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Dr. Anderson serves as an associate professor of English and Applied Linguistics at ODU. She is a sociolinguist specializing in acoustic phonetics and language variation. Incorporating research and service learning into her pedagogical practices she treasures every moment spent in the classroom. She also directs Tidewater Voices, a community language and oral history project, which allows the people of the Tidewater region to tell their own stories, in their own words and language.
Presentation #3 Title
The Other H-Word in Appalachia
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
In Appalachia few if any concepts are more highly valued than home, so it stands to reason that the terminology of Appalachian natives pertaining to home can inform us of both how they talk and what they think about home.
This presentation will explore the dimensions of two terms that may reveal significant sentiments and notions of their users about home. Both of them relate fundamentally to what we might call “rootedness.” One is the very familiar homeplace, is well documented by the Dictionary of American Regional English. DARE defines it as “the home, outbuildings and immediate land of a family, or simply the home itself, as contrasted with other land or buildings the family might own” and labels it as used chiefly in the southern half of the U.S. The other term, homeland, has only one citation in DARE, from David Claerbout’s Black Jargon in White America (1972), meaning “the black section of the city.” Its use by many natives of Appalachia, though likely of recent vintage, has apparently gone unnoticed by observers of the region’s language. Silas House used it recently in rebutting the views about Eastern Kentucky held by a New York Times feature writer. The term’s application ranges from the broadly regional (House) to the very local–the ancestral property of a family. The latter is illustrated by Ron Eller, who has written, “Why had my father and his father before him had [sic] to leave their homeland in order to make a living for their families?”
To gather data, the presenter will survey and interview natives of Appalachia and will search corpora of written American English for evidence. In exploring the reference of homeland and Appalachian homeland, we can perhaps come closer to understanding the continuing experience of the region’s people and gain insight to their history in the United States.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Michael Montgomery is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English and Linguistics at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where he taught English linguistics for nearly twenty years before retiring in 1999. Previously he was on the faculty for brief periods at Memphis State University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, he is a 1973 graduate of Maryville (TN) College and completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Florida in 1979, writing a dissertation based on fieldwork in White Pine, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
Presentation #4 Title
Language Accommodation Even at Home
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
We explore how the presence of outsiders and tape recorders affects people’s speech. Specifically, we analyze tape-recorded interviews we conducted in the homes of residents of Mountain City, Tennessee. We compare the speech patterns produced in this somewhat unnatural and uncomfortable context with those otherwise expected in this region of southern Appalachia. Certain features of regional speech are recognized as “non-standard” or stigmatized (e.g., use of ain’t and multiple negation), and these are often predictably absent in the interview context. Certain other accommodations are more surprising and interesting, as are some features that are retained.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Judy B. Bernstein, William Paterson University
Billy Ward II, King University
Mountain Intonation: Using Pitch in Appalachian Englishes
This paper shows how intonation (i.e. changing pitch across a sentence) is a defining feature of Appalachian English (AE), and how it differentiates AE from other types of American English. This study analyzes the intonation from sociolinguistic interview data from 24 (12 male, 12 female) Appalachian English (AE) speakers from northeast Tennessee. These results were compared to other American English varieties with data from demographically comparable Southern and Mainstream speakers. In addition, the AE speakers were categorized by local orientation and ‘rootedness’ based on responses to questions about feelings toward the local region and responses to a survey instrument. Results show that overall the highest point of the pitch aligned differently in the syllable in this variety of AE than in other varieties. Additionally, these Appalachian speakers appear to have greater change in pitch (from the minimum to the maximum local pitch) than other Southern and Mainstream American English speakers. Moreover, these results indicate that those speakers who have a greater local orientation and rootedness appear to have the greatest excursion and most different pitch alignment. This finding suggests that pitch might be a socio-pragmatically productive means for speakers to demonstrate orientation toward and to reflect covert prestige associated with a stigmatized region.
