{"id":9582,"date":"2017-07-16T07:10:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-16T07:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9582"},"modified":"2017-07-17T07:13:27","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T07:13:27","slug":"combatting-stereotypes-about-appalachian-dialects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/combatting-stereotypes-about-appalachian-dialects\/","title":{"rendered":"Combatting stereotypes about Appalachian dialects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kirk Hazen<\/a>, West Virginia University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

During the 2016 presidential election, broad support for Donald Trump came from most communities in Appalachia, where he received 63 percent<\/a> of the vote. A great deal of national attention was directed to the people of this region, which spans<\/a> from southern New York to Mississippi and Alabama.<\/p>\n

Much of this attention was negative<\/a>, with some critics calling for the political separation of Appalachia and others simply dumping their woe in Appalachia\u2019s blame bucket. Lately, this turn against Appalachia has been dubbed \u201cthe hillbilly problem.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing new. <\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s hillbilly hooch<\/a>, hillbilly hot dogs<\/a> or hillbilly mascots<\/a>, there\u2019s probably no other cultural trope that\u2019s so widely and derisively employed as hillbilly<\/a>, a term broadly used to refer to the people of Appalachia.<\/p>\n

Many qualities come prepackaged with the hillbilly stereotype: poverty, backwardness and low levels of education. One of the most prevalent is the idea that the way the people of Appalachia speak \u2013 the so-called Appalachian dialect \u2013 is somehow incorrect or malformed.<\/p>\n

From years of research, linguists understand that this perception is simply untrue. But few people are actually interested in discrediting it. <\/p>\n

In 1998, I founded the West Virginia Dialect Project<\/a> to conduct research on the different and changing dialects of West Virginia, a state wholly contained within Appalachia. The language variations that we have identified are far more nuanced than the kind that appear in the media.<\/p>\n

Frozen in time?<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a long history of misconceptions about the Appalachian dialect. <\/p>\n

In 1899, Berea College (Kentucky) President William Goodell Frost wrote \u201cOur Contemporary Ancestors,\u201d<\/a> in which he argued that the ways of mountain people were not wrong but simply habits from bygone times. <\/p>\n

Frost described the \u201crude language of the mountains\u201d as a form of speech frozen in time. Once the norm, it had fallen out of favor in many other parts of the country.<\/p>\n

If you hear someone float the commonly held belief that Elizabethan English persists somewhere in the hills of Appalachia<\/a>, they\u2019re following in Frost\u2019s footsteps. As romantic as this notion seems, the era of Elizabethan English officially ended in 1603, before any permanent U.S. immigration and long before the settlement of Appalachia<\/a>. <\/p>\n

To give one example of Frost\u2019s reasoning, he argued that using the word \u201cpack\u201d to mean \u201ccarry\u201d \u2013 apparently common in Appalachia at the time \u2013 originated in Chaucer\u2019s England of the 1300s. In reality, all evidence points to this being an American creation, with one of the earliest citations occurring in an 1804 entry<\/a> in the journals of Lewis and Clark: \u201cI killed a Deer which york Packed on his back.\u201d <\/p>\n

Frost probably had good intentions. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of truth. By claiming that the language was somehow \u201cfrozen in history,\u201d he helped perpetuate the stereotype that Appalachians were a retrograde people.<\/p>\n

Fluid speech<\/h2>\n

From the work of linguists Michael Montgomery<\/a>, Walt Wolfram<\/a> and several others over the last 40 years, we know that language in Appalachia is actually quite fluid, and has evolved in significant ways over the past century, as language has in other parts of the country. <\/p>\n

Variation is an essential part of human language. For any of the 7,000 or so languages on Earth<\/a>, language variation allows for change in accordance with a society\u2019s needs, while providing endless opportunities for individuals to create new forms of speech within their communities.<\/p>\n

Two examples of language variation \u2013 what linguists have dubbed the \u201cleveled \u2018was\u2019\u201d (\u201cWe was going to the store\u201d) and the \u201cquotative \u2018be like\u2019\u201d (\u201cShe was like, \u2018That\u2019s great,\u2019\u201d) \u2013 illustrate the types of changes occurring in Appalachian dialects, and the forces behind those changes.<\/p>\n

One pattern of language variation that has existed in English since its beginning in A.D. 449 is the fluctuation between \u201cwere\u201d and \u201cwas.\u201d The variation of \u201cwe was\u201d and \u201cwe were\u201d is widespread in English today, and linguists call the \u201cwe was\u201d form \u201cleveled\u201d because the same form is used for every subject. <\/p>\n

In West Virginia in the early 1970s, the usage rate of the leveled \u201cwas\u201d hovered around 70 percent<\/a> in the speech of the residents of Mercer and Monroe counties. However, looking across generations at the end of the 20th century, usage rates of the leveled \u201cwas\u201d declined<\/a>. Fifty-four percent for speakers born before 1947 used it, while only 8 percent of speakers born after 1980 did so.<\/p>\n

The story is actually more complex: the leveled \u201cwas\u201d can be used as a social flag, waving to show a person\u2019s rural identity or in-group status. Plus, certain related forms, such as contracted \u201cwas\u201d (\u201cWe\u2019s out late last night\u201d) aren\u2019t declining, but seem to operate under the radar of social evaluation. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Variation in leveled \u2018was\u2019 and contracted \u2018was.\u2019<\/span>
\n Kirk Hazen<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trends that follow the rest of the country<\/h2>\n

The second example of changes in Appalachian language variation patterns is in fact one shared with most of the English-speaking world: the use of the verb \u201cbe like\u201d to introduce a quote. (\u201cThey were like, \u2018No, the market is not open on Saturdays.\u2019\u201d) <\/p>\n

Since the early 1980s, this variation has spread rapidly<\/a> around the English-speaking world<\/a>. For most younger speakers, it has resoundingly trounced \u201csay\u201d when introducing a quote.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the myth that Appalachia is an isolated region<\/a>, research by the West Virginia Dialect Project has found that the quotative \u201cbe like\u201d was widely adopted by speakers born after 1960. And as with numerous changes to language variation patterns<\/a>, women led the way in adopting this speech pattern in West Virginia. But in contrast to leveled \u201cwas\u201d \u2013 which has elevated rates among lower classes \u2013 quotative \u201cbe like\u201d has its highest rate with the higher social class in West Virginia. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Rates of quotative \u2018be like\u2019 for Appalachians born after World War II.<\/span>
\n Kirk Hazen<\/span>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end, our research buttresses what linguists have long understood: There\u2019s no monolithic \u201cAppalachian dialect,\u201d and language variation \u2013 an important component of language everywhere \u2013 is just as diverse within Appalachia as it is outside of the region.<\/p>\n

Pushing back<\/h2>\n

Unfortunately, the complexity of language variation in Appalachia gets flattened in popular entertainment. <\/p>\n

As analyzed in a forthcoming documentary, media representations rarely put in the effort<\/a> to get the complex patterns of Appalachian dialects right. Instead, they\u2019ll use clothing and one or two dialect features like a-prefixing (\u201cThey were a-running\u201d) and demonstrative \u201cthem\u201d (\u201cHe ate them apples yesterday\u201d) to create a broadly sketched, stereotypical portrait. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n Cover of sheet music from the collections of the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These stereotypes have become so pervasive that they\u2019ll occur in nearly every portrayal of Appalachia. In the 1954 sheet music illustration<\/a> for the Jack Waverly song \u201cSince Them Hillbillies Moved Down to the Holler,\u201d poverty and alcoholism are foregrounded, with the titular \u201chillbillies\u201d so pitiful that even the wildlife mocks them. The song title uses \u201cthem\u201d in a demonstrative way to convey a touch of vernacular speech. (In fact, we witnessed the rapid decline<\/a> of its use over the course of the 20th century.) <\/p>\n

From cartoons such as \u201cSnuffy Smith<\/a>\u201d to books like \u201cDeliverence<\/a>,\u201d from horror films such as \u201cWrong Turn<\/a>\u201d to reality TV series like MTV\u2019s \u201cBuckwild<\/a>,\u201d these stereotypical portrayals continue to color how the rest of the country sees Appalachia. <\/p>\n

People in Appalachia consume the same national media as everyone else, and they fully realize how other parts of the nation look down on them. These negative portrayals can have a harmful impact on perceptions of Appalachian people, both inside and outside the region.<\/p>\n

Certain dialect-focused projects are hoping to reverse these effects. Following the work of linguists like Walt Wolfram<\/a> and Jeffrey Reaser<\/a>, who created the Voices of North Carolina Dialect Awareness Curriculum<\/a>, the West Virginia Dialect Project has been working with educators to develop teaching materials to help people learn how language works. <\/p>\n

This effort includes Appalachian-specific teaching materials<\/a> to help secondary school teachers explain how dialects, including the numerous varieties in Appalachia, are a natural and important part of every human culture. In addition, the West Virginia Dialect Project is studying how West Virginian teenagers shift their language to fit in with various cliques, which helps nudge language change along.<\/p>\n

The idea is to support dialect diversity while upholding the goals of teaching standardized language norms that fit conventions of formal writing and presentations. Hopefully, this effort will make teaching about language more efficient, more realistic and more connected to students\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

\"TheMaggie McDonald contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kirk Hazen<\/a>, Professor of Linguistics, West Virginia University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kirk Hazen, West Virginia University During the 2016 presidential election, broad support for Donald Trump came from most communities in Appalachia, where he received 63 percent of the vote. A great deal of national attention was directed to the people of this region, which spans from southern New York to Mississippi and Alabama. Much of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[2746,2757,2756,191,149,2755,308,1728,420,2758],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9584,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9582\/revisions\/9584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}