Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Appalachian Linguistic Potpourri 2: Language Perception and Use Across the Region
Session Abstract or Summary
This panel will explore various aspects of Appalachian language varieties. Given that language is one of the principal components of culture, these papers engage with the impact that culture and identity have on variation across the region and across the different aspects of language. These language topics have received much recent academic attention, as demonstrated by Clark and Heyward (2013) and the forthcoming Appalachian Englishes volume edited by Hazen. At the same time, these topics also have much popular attention in various media sources including Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms as well as blogs, articles, and other journalistic sources. The papers in this panel discuss the perceptions and usages of varieties of Appalachian Englishes. The first paper explores where insiders and outsiders of the region think Appalachian English is spoken and what they think of the varieties. The second paper discusses Appalachian Ohio and how the speech patterns there serve as a type of transitional zone from the Southern, Midlands, and Northern dialectal regions. The third paper investigates how the different sub-regions of Appalachia might have different perceptions of language and as a result different rates of change. The final paper evaluates how speakers utilize Appalachian English features (and the concomitant connotations) for particular speech purposes. The goal is to show the breadth and depth of the diversity among Appalachian language varieties via the different perspectives, methodologies, and analyses of the panelists.
Presentation #1 Title
Understanding Perceptions of Appalachian Englishes
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
As entities immersed in mythologies of being isolated, unchanging, monolithic, and monolingual, what people know about Appalachian Englishes comes with a fair share of misunderstandings. This paper explores various data sets and analyses from research in linguistics as a field to bring together the many diverse and nuanced understandings about perceptions of the varieties of English spoken in, across, and around the Appalachian Mountains. To elucidate the (mis)conceptions that surround these varieties, I present research from educational linguistics, dialectology, sociophonetics, linguistic anthropology, and other fields where language, communication, and perception are jointly engaged, presenting the rather bleak picture of places, peoples, and languages shrouded in pejoration.
Going beyond what has already been said, I also present some research in progress aimed specifically at measuring what Appalachian Englishes are and where they can be found. Using a perceptual dialectology approach (e.g., Preston 1989, Cramer and Montgomery 2016), and drawing heavily on Ulack and Raitz (1982), this project asks nonlinguists to indicate whether they believe any Appalachian varieties of English exist, and, if so, where, given a map, such varieties can be found. In addition to the map drawing task, participants are also asked what characteristics they associate with Appalachia, its people, and its languages. Preliminary engagement with this type of data reveals that, like in Ulack and Raitz, insiders, outsiders, and cognitive outsiders vary in how they perceive Appalachian Englishes, but the major (primarily negative) stereotypes still surface, even for those who value their Appalachianness.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jennifer Cramer is an Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests are in the field of sociolinguistics. Her dissertation dealt with the linguistic production and perception of regional identity in Louisville. She is interested in perceptual dialectology, discourse analysis, and language and identity.
Presentation #2 Title
“Continuity and Change in Ohio English: South Midland, General Midland, or Appalachian?”
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Studies of the English of southern Ohio have been many, starting with the Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States (Marckwardt 1957; McDavid & McDavid 1960; Kurath & McDavid 1961) and continuing through Dakin’s 1966 study of the Upper Ohio Valley, the Dictionary of American Regional English (1985-2013), and smaller studies of several localities extending from Youngstown in the northeast to Athens County in the southeast and Cincinnati in the southwest (Hankey 1972; Flanigan 2005, 2008; Flanigan & Norris 2000; Thomas 1996, 2010; Boberg & Strassel 2000). In addition, student theses have contributed to a mapping of boundary distinctions in this region (Allen 1997; Kelley 1997; Humphries 1999; Nesbitt 2002; Van Wey 2005). All have suggested that a diagonal belt running southwest along the western Appalachian foothills shows influence from Appalachian or Southern Mountain speech that is neither Northern nor Southern nor even “general” Midland in the traditional sense of those dialect labels.
The stability of this “trans-Appalachian” dialect area (Dakin 1966) may be in question now, however. Migration to and from large urban centers like Cleveland/Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati may be affecting the younger generations in southeastern and southern Ohio. Recent work by Lee, O’Malley, and colleagues (2018; in preparation) will be compared with previous studies to determine whether or not these patterns reflect a fundamental change in the 200-year-old speech patterns of this area.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Beverly Flanigan is a retired Professor of Linguistics at Ohio University. She joined the faculty there in 1980 and retired in 2005. She taught courses in second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. Her research interests focus on the Appalachian region of Ohio.
Michelle Hough O'Malley earned an M.A. in Linguistics at Ohio University (1998) and my Ph.D. in Speech and Language Science from the College of Health Sciences and Professions (2008), also at Ohio University. Her primary areas of teaching and research include: Impacts of Cognitive & Cultural constructs on speech & language development, use and comprehension; Language Development (L1 & L2); Language Variation/Dialects; Phonetics & Phonology.
Presentation #3 Title
Linguistic Change and Subregionality in Appalachia
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Appalachian English is often thought of as a single, traditional form of speech associated with the older generation (Dial 1972, Montgomery 1979, Wolfram & Christian 1976). However, within the past two generations the social and linguistic landscape of Appalachia has greatly changed. Communities that lived mainly in isolation now experience immigration and emigration with the surrounding communities outside of Appalachia. With this openness come new language features and social practices. Recent research indicates that traditional Appalachian English features are in flux: with some dying out (Hazen 2006, Hazen, Butcher, & King 2010, Hazen, Hamilton, & Vacovsky 2011), others remaining stable (Hazen 2008), and others increasing among the younger generations (Hazen 2005, Childs & Mallinson 2004, Hasty 2011). These changes however are adapted and integrated differently by community members based on identity with the region and proximity to communities outside the region.
This study investigates these changes in Appalachian English through the results of a web-based survey of university students from Appalachian communities. The survey presents traditional phonetic, lexical, and morpho-syntactic Appalachian English features and asks respondents to report their use of these features and their observation of the use of these features by other speakers in their area. Results indicate significant differences between an area of Northern Appalachia (NAPP) and Southern Appalachia (SAPP), with SAPP leading NAPP in both hearing and using many more traditional features. While the two Appalachian groups patterned together for a few variables perhaps indicating a small set of unique Appalachian features, SAPP patterned more often with the South. These results indicate that language change in Appalachia is affecting NAPP and SAPP differently. We analyze this as NAPP becoming more like the surrounding Northern areas while SAPP follows the surrounding Southern areas and indicates the importance of these surrounding dialect regions when constructing an Appalachian identity.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Becky Childs is a Professor of Linguistics in the English Department at Coastal Carolina University. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Georgia, a MA in English from North Carolina State University, and BA in English from the University of Florida. Her research takes an ethnographically informed approach to language change in phonetic and phonological systems of varieties of English (African American, Bahamian, Southern English, Appalachian English, and Newfoundland English). Her recent work has focused more closely on issues of identity, salience, and local language change in Newfoundland and Appalachian English.
J. Daniel Hasty is an Associate Professor of Linguistics, joining the English Department at Coastal Carolina University in 2012. Daniel is a sociolinguist specializing in syntactic variation with a focus on Southern United States English. Daniel studies language variation, especially morphosyntactic variation in Southern English, through a blend of quantitative sociolinguistic and syntactic field methods.
Presentation #4 Title
Linguistic Hybridity and the Construction of Pipeline Resistance Verbal Repertoires
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
The under-construction Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) crosses rural Appalachia on land owned by those who speak various forms of English, including Appalachian speech varieties, and whose demographics cross multiple categories. Historically, these speakers have formed social and political factions often indexed by their speech variety. The pressing need to organize to fight a common major environmental and land use threat, however, has brought hundreds of these residents to work together to engage in 80 or more new ways of communicating orally or in writing to each other. All rely on their various vernaculars to implement how to succeed. This presentation describes how these discursive modes have resulted in a communication hybridity in Montgomery County, Virginia. This hybridity draws on the local Appalachian vernacular, academic modes of speaking, business rhetoric, legal discourse, federal jargonize, and conversational Standard American English speech. Outcomes from these sociolinguistic changes are facilitating change in sociopolitical relations that promise to have implications for alterations in county political and economic structuring. This presentation analyzes these changes using data obtained through thousands of hours of linguistic ethnographic observation and participation in local and regional venues of pipeline protest. A typology of reconfigured discursive speaking practices has been created that reveals competing or complementary verbal repertoires that, in turn, have both positively and negatively impacted resistance efforts through both acceptance and rejection of discursive structural changes. Analysis of how this (non) hybridity has (not) changed underlying power configurations in the county concludes the presentation.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Dr. Anita Puckett is a linguistic anthropologist specializing in Appalachian language and culture relationships. She has been active in grassroots organizational resistance to the building of mega natural gas pipelines since 2014.
Understanding Perceptions of Appalachian Englishes
As entities immersed in mythologies of being isolated, unchanging, monolithic, and monolingual, what people know about Appalachian Englishes comes with a fair share of misunderstandings. This paper explores various data sets and analyses from research in linguistics as a field to bring together the many diverse and nuanced understandings about perceptions of the varieties of English spoken in, across, and around the Appalachian Mountains. To elucidate the (mis)conceptions that surround these varieties, I present research from educational linguistics, dialectology, sociophonetics, linguistic anthropology, and other fields where language, communication, and perception are jointly engaged, presenting the rather bleak picture of places, peoples, and languages shrouded in pejoration.
Going beyond what has already been said, I also present some research in progress aimed specifically at measuring what Appalachian Englishes are and where they can be found. Using a perceptual dialectology approach (e.g., Preston 1989, Cramer and Montgomery 2016), and drawing heavily on Ulack and Raitz (1982), this project asks nonlinguists to indicate whether they believe any Appalachian varieties of English exist, and, if so, where, given a map, such varieties can be found. In addition to the map drawing task, participants are also asked what characteristics they associate with Appalachia, its people, and its languages. Preliminary engagement with this type of data reveals that, like in Ulack and Raitz, insiders, outsiders, and cognitive outsiders vary in how they perceive Appalachian Englishes, but the major (primarily negative) stereotypes still surface, even for those who value their Appalachianness.
