Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Expanding Our Perspectives on the English Language in Appalachia
Session Abstract or Summary
Scholarship has conventionally treated the English of Appalachia as monolithic, more or less the same from Northern Georgia to Western Pennsylvania, and ignored the diversity that one would naturally expect. However, recent scholarship demonstrates that the varieties of English spoken in the region, as in all language, vary across time, space, society, and localness of attachment. The present panel continues this thread of describing language variation within the region. Two presentations provide research tools that highlight linguistic diversity and will allow for increasingly nuanced scholarship that can focus on the range of language varieties. A third provides insight into variation within a particular community, highlighting a lesser-known influence on language, the Cherokee substrate of speakers in Western North Carolina. The final presentation presents ongoing work on the syntactic variation within the region, part of which is a call for participation in this continuing project.
Presentation #1 Title
The Archive of Traditional Appalachian Speech and Culture
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Does Appalachia speak with one voice, one that always sounds the same? One might be excused for thinking so from how the media gloss over immense social, economic, and historical differences and treat the region as if uniform. Scholarly presentations (especially of Appalachia’s southern half) often create similar impressions by generalizing from one locality to the larger region. We in Appalachian Studies may preach even teach the “diversity” of Appalachia, but how do we show this? Just how do we get round the habit of submerging the differences and speaking of Appalachia generically, especially in regard to speech? In short, how can we document diversity in its English? This presentation introduces a project in progress that is designed to address the issues above, both to hear individual voices and to compare sub-regional speech patterns: the Archive of Traditional Appalachian Speech and Culture. ATASC is a repository under construction of more than two hundred traditional speakers from thirteen constituent areas around Southern Appalachia, from West Virginia to North Georgia. Speakers are presented in two forms–texts (careful, reliable written transcriptions of oral history recordings) and in voices (audio versions of interviews or interview excerpts). The project has transcribed more than three hundred hours to date. This presentation discusses the motivations of the project, the timeframe it covers, the criteria used in selecting material, its transcription methodology, the location of its constituent areas, and other features, with commentary on its political significance.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Michael Montgomery is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of South Carolina.
Presentation #2 Title
The Appalachian English Website
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Akin to the region itself, one would expect varieties of English spoken within Appalachia to be diverse, yet research literature has long treated them as if monolithic. Scholarship (e.g. Hazen and Fluharty 2004, Anderson 2004, Greene 2010, Reed 2014) has hardly begun to focus on intra-regional linguistic diversity. Language varies across time, geography, and culture, and a greater understanding of intra-regional variation is needed. The present paper discusses an online resource that highlights this linguistic diversity, the Appalachian English website. Recently revised and expanded, the site provides research tools for scholars and laypersons alike. Audio recordings with accompanying transcriptions, a grammatical overview, and an exhaustive, annotated bibliography are only a few of the components that permit informed investigation of the region’s English. While the core material is from 1939 recordings made by Joseph Hall, oral history recordings from around the region are increasingly added to provide new raw data and potential research avenues. Visitors can hear Appalachian English from around the region, study transcripts of interviews about a variety of local cultural practices and histories, and even take vocabulary quizzes. Utilizing different linguistic media, the site situates itself as a tool for scholars from diverse disciplines. Just as important, the site’s accessible, lay-friendly articles and commentary contribute to public education about Appalachia’s characteristic, but often misunderstood and misrepresented speech. Whether from the region or from overseas, visitors report spending hours at the site and testify to its serious, informed treatment of the subject, one found nowhere else on the Internet.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Paul Reed is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of South Carolina.
Presentation #3 Title
Early Recordings of Cherokee English are a Window Into New Dialect Formation
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
This paper examines very early recordings from Western North Carolina of Cherokees speaking English. Montgomery and Hall (2004: xv) note that Hall collected interviews and observations from over 200 residents of the Great Smoky Mountains in the late 1930s, and this paper presents an analysis of three recordings of Cherokee speakers of English, one who seems to be speaking English as her first language and two speakers who speak English as a second language.
Anderson (1999) examined the influence of the ancestral language of Cherokee on a subset of the English vowel systems of speakers of Cherokee English in Graham County, NC. She found that the patterning of /ai/ (‘tide’) and /oi/ (‘boy’) in Cherokee English was based on a combination of the syllable structure of Cherokee as well as accommodation to the vowel patterns of the surrounding Anglo Appalachian English speakers. One remarkable finding was that even monolingual speakers of Cherokee English who were not fluent in the ancestral language showed robust vowel patterns that incorporate aspects of the sound structure of Cherokee. These Cherokee influenced sounds combined with features of Appalachian English and reflect the persistence of ethnic identity as well as great resilience and adaptability in dealing with the surrounding White population.
Much like the more modern-day speech reported in Anderson (1999), acoustic analysis of these early recordings reveals a mixture of features from Cherokee and from the contact variety of Appalachian English, but Cherokee English has, like all dialects, changed over the years.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Dr. Bridget L. Anderson is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Old Dominion University.
Presentation #4 Title
Linguistic diversity and the art of floating in Appalachian speech
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
Linguists have documented many ways in which the English of Appalachia is distinctive, including in vocabulary, pronunciation, and morphology. Especially the first two aspects of language are arguably more superficial ones that speakers from outside the region can learn. However, linguists are now beginning to consider differences in word order and sentence structure. For example, general American English allows quantifiers like all and both to ‘float’ to positions other than the canonical one illustrated in (1a) adjacent to and preceding a noun phrase.
(1) a. [All] the girls can sing.
b. The girls [all] can sing.
c. The girls can [all] sing.
Appalachian speech displays floating more productively: more elements are subject to floating and additional placements are possible. Examples with quantificational pronouns like every one (also ever one) and either (also either one) are found in Montgomery & Hall’s (2004) Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English and Montgomery, Hall, & Heinmiller’s (forthcoming) Dictionary of Smoky Mountain and Southern Appalachian English:
(2) a. They can [every one] sing (1939 Joseph Hall Collection).
b. Poppy’s sisters–they [ever’ one] wove (1983 Page and Wigginton Aunt Arie
102).
c. I want you all to write to me [ever one] (1863 Chapman CW Letters).
d. When he tetched them all they [every one of them] turned into rocks (1974
Roberts Sang Branch Settlers 293).
In (2c) ever one is sentence final and in (2d) every one occurs as part of a phrase. These patterns are not found in general American English.
In this session, audience members will be introduced to the floating phenomenon and invited to participate in a survey of their own speech patterns.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Judy Bernstein is Professor of Linguistics at William Paterson University.
The Archive of Traditional Appalachian Speech and Culture
Does Appalachia speak with one voice, one that always sounds the same? One might be excused for thinking so from how the media gloss over immense social, economic, and historical differences and treat the region as if uniform. Scholarly presentations (especially of Appalachia’s southern half) often create similar impressions by generalizing from one locality to the larger region. We in Appalachian Studies may preach even teach the “diversity” of Appalachia, but how do we show this? Just how do we get round the habit of submerging the differences and speaking of Appalachia generically, especially in regard to speech? In short, how can we document diversity in its English? This presentation introduces a project in progress that is designed to address the issues above, both to hear individual voices and to compare sub-regional speech patterns: the Archive of Traditional Appalachian Speech and Culture. ATASC is a repository under construction of more than two hundred traditional speakers from thirteen constituent areas around Southern Appalachia, from West Virginia to North Georgia. Speakers are presented in two forms–texts (careful, reliable written transcriptions of oral history recordings) and in voices (audio versions of interviews or interview excerpts). The project has transcribed more than three hundred hours to date. This presentation discusses the motivations of the project, the timeframe it covers, the criteria used in selecting material, its transcription methodology, the location of its constituent areas, and other features, with commentary on its political significance.
