Appalachian Speech

194 Pages·1976·7.81 MB·English

by  Walt Wolfram

App
VERMISSION TO REPROOUCE THIS COPY.
RIGHTED MATERIAL HAS SEEN GRANTED BY
Skrt*LC)kAllikiL.
U.S. DE PARTME NT OF HEALTH.
EDUCATION &WELFARE
TO ENG AND ORGONZARONS OPERATING NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF
UNDER AGREEMENTS WIN THE NATIONAL IN. EDUCATION
STNUTE OF EOLICATION URTHER REPRO-
DUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERG SYSTEM RE. THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO.
CORES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FRom
OWNER " Tom PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN.
Amp IT POINTS Of VIEW OR OPINIONS
STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE.
SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of
EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY
'"'rt
49
CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS
2
il
Waft Wolfram
Donna Christian
4
Center forAppled Linguistics
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 76-15079
ISBN: 87281,050-X
June 1976
Copyright@1976
By the Center for Applied Linguistics
1611 North Kent St, :et
Arlington, Virginia 22209 4
Printed in the U.S.A.
"Evezybody lives in the mountains has an accent all to theirself."
%
5.
Preface
Although the focus on social dialects during the past decade has greatly
advanced the theoretical and descriptive base of sociolinguistics, it is
apparent that the descriptive concerns have often been quite selective.
Descriptive accounts of some varieties proliferate rapidly while other
varieties remain virtually ignored. ln this book, we hope to expand the
descriptive base of dialect diversity in American English by focusing on
an often-neglected geographical area of tne United Statesthe mountain
range of Appalachia. While we have adopted a particular sociolinguistic
model for our description, we have endeavored to present our findings in
a way that would make them accessible to specialists in fields other
than professional linguistics and still be of use to linguists. We are
primarily interested in ptaviding 4 meaningful reference work for edu-
cators--particularly reading specialists, English teachers, language
arts specialists, and spcech pathologists. We are further concerned
with the educational implications of such diversity, and therefore dis-,
cuss the educational significance of dialect diversity at some length.
We weuld like to think of our description of Appalachian English as com-
prehensive, but we are well aware of the fact that there are a number of
descriptive aspects which we have treated in little or no detail.
This book originally developed from one part of a final research
report, Sociolinguistic Variables in Appalachian Dialects, carried out
under contract NIE-C-74-0026 with the National Institute of Education
0/10, from June 1974 - August 1975. Detailed formal descriptions of
a number of the features treated in the final research report are not
included here but they can be found in the second part of the final re-
port submitteC1 to the N1E.
There are many people to whom we wre indebted for assistance and
consultation. Prcminent among them are those individuals in Monroe and
Mercer Caunties who aided us in our initial contacts in the area. Mary
Compton and William McNeel in Monroe County and C. D. Lilly and Haroloi
Okes of Mercer County were most gracious in helping us establish con-
tacts in the area. They generously opened up the schools in these
counties for those aspects of the research which were conducted in that
connection. We could not have participated in a more cordial working
relationship. They also offered their kind assistance in extending our
contacts to other individuals in the area who assisted us in this ven-
ture. including Haskell Shdmate, county clerk of Monroe County, West
Virginia, who provided us with invaluable insight into the history of
the region.
The study could not have been conducted without the assistance of
our fieldworkers from the two counties; Nora Mann and Gary Pence, of
Monroe County; Harless Cook, Brenda Lohr, Agnes Pietrantozzi, and
Rebecca Michael, of Mercer County. They each demonstrated that indi-
6
genous fieldworkers can be used to great advantage iG a study of tnis type.
Their adaptation of the questionnaire and general knowledge of the area
proved to be a rich, useful resource in this investigation.
We owe our greatest debt to them and the informants who provided the
interviews that seive as our data base for this analysis. Although the
informants, who remain anonymous in this report, may have been puzzled
by the seeming inanity of our prebing, they willingly tolerated the
intrusion into their everyday world.
We are further indebted to our professional colleagues. Roger W.
Shuy, Peg Griffin, and Rudolph Troike, of The Center for Applied
Linguistics, interacted with us at many stages in the formation, ana-
lysis, and completion of the study. Hugh Rudorf, of the University of
Nebraska, and Terrance Graham, of Virginia Polytechnical Institute,
worked with us in setting up the original project and consulted with
us during various stages of the research. William Labov, Ralph W.
Fasold, Riven t. McDavid, Jr., and Crawford Feagin made many helpful
comments on various aspects of our analysis. No doubt, we will regret
that we have not always followed their advice.
Finally, we express our gratitude to those who took an active
interest in the form of the finished work. Peggy Good was committed
to seeing our original research project through to completion at some
inconvenience to her own schedule of activities, and Begay Atkinson
and Diane Bartosh were given the task of editing our sometimes unwieldy
prose. Our list of those who helped in one way or another could no
doubt be expanded considerably but it would still be incomplete. It
is often the.brief question about a particular point of analysis, or
the quick reference to another work to consult, or a passing word of
encouragement that turns out to be a significant contribution to the
final product.
Malt Wolfram
Federal City College and
Center for Applied Linguistics
Donna Christian
Center for Applied Linguistics and
Georgetown University
March 1976
7
vi
tale of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction 1
Overview 1
An Historical Sketch
The Linguistic Sample IO
CHAPTER TUO1 A Sociolinguistic Framework for the Study
of Appalachian English IS
Social Aspects of Variation 15
Linguistic Aspects of Variation 21
The Description of Appalachian Snglish 28
Toward a Definition of Appalachian Snglish
and Standard Snglish 29
CHAPTER THREE: Phonological Aspects 33
Consonant Clusters 33
copu/a 4nd Auxiliary 40
R and I. Deletion 45
Th 48
Initial Segments 50
Initial h Retention in Auxiliaries and Pronouns 57
Features Involving Nasals 59
Other COnsonantai Features 63
Vowel Characteristics 64
CHAPTER FOUR: Grammatical Fcaturea 69
Verbs 69
Adverbs 98
Negation 108
Nominals 116
Prepositions 126
Indirect Questions 127
CHAPTER FIVE: Educational Implications of Dialect Diversity
Language Attitudes
vii
8
Dialect Diversity and Tasting 135
Language Arts and Dialect Diversity 145
Dialect Diversity and Reading 152
CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion 161
APPENDICES 165
Appendix At Interview Questionnaires 166
Appendix B: Sample Informant Interview 169
Appendix C: Complete List of Informants in Sample 184
BIBLIOGRAPHY 187
9
vi
Chapter One: Introduction
My sister Aggie looked at if foo when 1
was 'through and she yelled ()cif surprised
Were's a Any awl where we tve!"
Jim Comstock, Pe and Ma and Mader Kennedy
OVERVIEW
Language variation in American English is something that all speakers
of our language notice in one way or another. People notice it and comment
about it as they interact with individuals from different regions of the
United States and different social and ethnic groups. Educators also
confront it as they encounter the effect that dialect diversity may have
- on language skills relating to the education process. And professional
linguists are concerned with it as they attempt to give a formal account
of the rules of English.
While language diversity among English varieties has been of interest
for some time, we have witnessed an extended descriptive concern for
social and ethnic varieties of American English in recent years. Despite
the growing concern for understanding the linguistic structure of social
varieties, certain needs are still apparent. Some non-mainstream vari-
eties, such as Vernacular Black English, have been the object of a great
deal of attention while others, particularly those with strong regional
ties, have been virtually ignored. One of these still neglected geo-
graphical areas is Appalachia. It is well Inbwn that this area is one
of the most linguistically divergent, yet it has been accorded minimal
descriptive attention in contemporary studies.
The difference between the English spoken in this loosely defined
area and other varieties is well recognivsd by pcople from other areas
as they travel through the Appalachian region or have occasion to meet
people who have come from there. Unfortunately,poor imitations and
stereotypes of the language have been popularized irt media presentations
depicting life in this mountain range. Such differences are also noticed
by the people of Appalachia as they compare their own speech to that
1
1 0
'
1 1 differentiated by the extent to which a certain rule applied, and manyinstead, social dialects were more typicallyanother group never did.was inac:urate to say that one group &Nags used a particular form andIn ma". cases, itstatements.ho dist nguished by simple "categorical"sixties, however, clearly revealed that varietie- of Faglish could notStudies of U.S. social dialects in the mid- and lategroups never did.low class groups always used a particular lingaistic form and high classIt was commonly thought, for example, that certainwere differentiated.respects at variance with popular perceptions of how varieties of EnglisThis observation was in manywhich certain featutes or rules occur.crete sets of features but also by variations in the frequencies within the United States are differentiated from each othor not only by dis-in the past decade has been the discovery that various social dialectsPerhaps the most significant contribution of sociolinguistic studielinguistic considerations.the consideration of social factors, whereas others deal primarily withSome aspects of this model involvefor viewing linguistic uiversity.within an appropriate context, it is necessary to set forth a frameworkIn order to place the description of AE in th-OSubsequent chapters A Sociolinguistic Framework base for a representative area of the Appalachian Nbuntain range.language divatsity in question, and this study should provide such adiversity in education must start with a solid descriptive base of theAny concern for the role of languagecomposition, and language testing.educational concerns, including the role of dialect differences in readithis descriptive study should provide a base for looking at a number ofOn a practical level,ings here with analyses of ..iata from other areas.in some technical detail, we are also concerned with comparing our find-ror l_inguistic features which have already been studietheir structure.tention, we are concerned with giving a fairly detailed description offeatures of this variety which have been gi,en minimal linguistic at-For theas AE) as typified by one representative variety of the area.linguistic description of Appalachian English (henceforth, abbreviatedOn a descriptive level, we are concerned with previding an accurate socipractical knowledge of the range of language varieties in American EngliThe purpose of the present study is to add to our descriptive ardguistic variation.. serve as an extended empirical base to investigate the nature of lin-Data from this variety mayvariable rules and implicational relations.language variation, particularly as evidenced in the formulation ofin sociolinguistics has developed important new models for describingRecent researchgating the theoretical nature of language variation.American varieties, such studies provide an important source for investiIn addition to the expansion of our descriptive base ofthe language.ment the current descriptions of other social and ethnic varieties ofable impetus for having a description of this variety which can comoe-From the standpoint of the professional linguist, there is considerfor example. critically low when compared with that of other U.S. areas.Thc literacy level in Appalachia is,stigmatized language varieties.high correlation between the level of literacy and the use of sociallyties that have been studied in the United States, there appears to be aAs in other non-mainstream speaking communskills relating to language.relationship of this variety and the acquisition of certain educationalEducators have been concerned with the possiblareas and then returned.of speakers from other areas, or those among them who have lived in othe Introducti2
h s n d os - - i er o
g -h - n
, .