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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 533

Part of Session 157: Dialect Perceptions in the City (Other abstracts in this session)

The Perception and Production of Regional Identity in a Border City

Authors: Cramer, Jennifer
Submitted by: Cramer, Jennifer (University of Kentucky, United States of America)

Within traditional dialectology, nonlinguists’ perceptions have often been considered secondary to the analysis of “real” data, such as phonetic and lexical variables. Perceptual Dialectology, however, has shown that perceptual data can provide insights that are complementary to production data. In this paper, Louisville, Kentucky, located on a river, at a state border, on the edge of what is generally defined as the South, is presented as an example of how perceptual and production data can be used together to better understand how borders impact speakers’ linguistic acts of identity. This paper addresses the ways in which Louisvillians constantly negotiate and contest their regional identities, shifting between Southern and non-Southern identities, in the active and agentive expression of their amplified awareness of belonging brought about by their position on the border.

Following the models of mental mapping discussed in much of the Perceptual Dialectology research (cf. Preston 1989), subjects in Louisville were given a map of a small region of the United States and were asked to draw lines around areas they consider to be dialect regions. Subjects were also asked to complete a language attitudes survey, where they listed the labels used on their maps and, using a four-point scale, rated these varieties in terms of the following social characteristics: difference (with respect to their own variety), correctness, pleasantness, standardness, formality, beauty, and education. Data analysis presents the perceptions nonlinguists in this city have about variation in the region, with specific focus on how Louisvillians distinguish themselves from the rest of the state.

Additionally, production data from a reality television show, Southern Belles: Louisville, are presented to show how the perceptual data complements the realities of production. Specifically, recalling Labov, Ash, and Boberg’s (2006) classification of Louisville as a Southern city, I examine the production data for elements of the Southern Vowel Shift. An acoustic analysis of the speakers’ variable use of the different stages of the shift is presented.

Results show that Louisvillians do recognize the border nature of their city as represented in their mental maps and language attitudes surveys. Louisvillians appear to distance themselves from an Appalachian dialect or other Kentucky dialects through physical separation in maps and through negative evaluations in their language attitudes surveys. However, they seem to value certain aspects of both Midwestern and Southern dialects, varying on which categorization to give Louisville depending on which region was known for a particularly positive attribute. In a similar way, the analysis of the production data reveals that, likely because of Louisville’s border position, speakers have access to Southern and non-Southern systems, and their fluid regional identities are represented in their seemingly random selection of vowel variants.

References

Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change, a Multimedia Reference Tool. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Preston, Dennis R. 1989. Perceptual Dialectology: Nonlinguists’ views of areal linguistics Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Foris.