New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Approaches

824 Pages·2015·5.507 MB·

by  Michael D. Picone, Catherine Evans Davies (eds.

NEW
PERSPECTIVES
ON LANGUAGE
VARIETY IN
THE SOUTH

NEW
PERSPECTIVES
ON LANGUAGE
VARIETY IN
THE SOUTH
HIS TORI CAL AND
CONTEMPORARY
APPROACHES
Edited by
MICHAEL D. PICONE
and CATHERINE EVANS DAVIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALA BAMA PRESS
Tuscaloosa
The University of Ala bama Press
Tuscaloosa, Ala bama 35487- 0380
uapress.ua.edu
Copyright © 2015 by the University of Alab ama Press
All rights reserved.
Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University
of Ala bama Press.
Typeface: Minion and Triplex
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover image and design: Gary Gore
∞
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
New perspectives on language variety in the South : historical and contemporary approaches
/ edited by Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8173-1815-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8736-5 (e book)
1.English language—Variation—Southern States. 2. English language—Dialects—Southern
States. 3. English language—Southern States—Pronunciation. 4. Language and languages—
Variation—Southern States. 5. Language and languages—Dialects—Southern States.
6.Language and languages—Southern States—Pronunciation. 7. Language and culture—
Southern States. 8. Americanisms—Southern States. 9. Southern States—Languages. I.
Picone, Michael D., editor. II. Davies, Catherine Evans, editor.
PE2923.N49 2014
427'.975—dc23
2014016040
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Introduction
Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies 1
PART I. HIS TORI CAL APPROACHES
Indigenous Languages
2. Americ an Indian Languages of the Southeast: An Introduction
Pamela Munro 21
3. A Profile of the Caddo Language
Wallace Chafe 43
4. The Ofo Language of Louisiana: Recovery of Grammar and Typology
Robert L. Rankin 52
5. Timucua - ta: Muskogean Parallels
George Aaron Broadwell 72
6. Pre-C olumbian Links to the Caribbean: Evidence Connecting Cusabo to Taíno
Blair A. Rudes 82
Earlier Englishes of the South
7. The Crucial Century for English in the Americ an South
Michael B. Montgomery 97
8. South ern Ameri can English in Perspective: A Quantitative Comparison with
Other English and Americ an Dialects
Robert Shackleton 118
9. Some Developments in South ern Americ an English Grammar
Jan Tillery 149
vi / Contents
10. Francis Lieber’s Americ anisms as an Early Source on South ern Speech
Stuart Davis 166
11. Earlier South ern Englishes in Black and White: Corpus- Based Approaches
Edgar W. Schneider 182
The Af ri can Diaspora
12. Some Early Creole- Like Data from Slave Speakers: The Island of St. Helena,
1695–1711
Laura Wright 203
13. Regional Variation in Nineteenth- Century Af ri can Ameri can English
Gerard Van Herk 219
14. Prima Facie Evidence for the Persistence of Creole Features in Af ri can Ameri-
can English and Evidence for Residual Creole
David Sutcliffe 233
15. The Linguistic Status of Gullah- Geechee: Divergent Phonological Processes
Thomas B. Klein 254
Earlier French of the Gulf South
16. French Dialects of Louisiana: A Revised Typology
Michael D. Picone 267
17. From French to English in Louisiana: The Prudhomme Family’s Story
Connie C. Eble 288
PART II. CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES
Across the South
18. The South in DARE Revisited
Joan Houston Hall and Luanne von Schneidemesser 301
19. The South: Still Different
Dennis R. Preston 311
20. Demography as Destiny? Population Change and the Future of
Southe rn Ameri can English
Guy Bailey 327
English in the Contemporary South: Persistence and Change
21. A Century of Sound Change in Ala bama
Crawford Feagin 353
22. Various Variation Aggregates in the LAMSAS South
John Nerbonne 369
23. The Persistence of Dialect Features
Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath 383
Contents / vii
English in the Contemporary South: Discourse Approaches
24. South ern Storytelling: His tori cal and Contemporary Perspectives
Catherine Evans Davies 399
25. The South ern and Southwest ern Discourse Styles of Two Texas Women
Judith M. Bean 422
26. We Ain’t Done Yet: Dialect Depiction and Language Ideology
Rachel Shuttlesworth Thompson 433
English in the Contemporary South: Afr i can Ameri can Language Issues
27. Race, Racialism, and the Study of Language Evolution in America
Salikoko Mufwene 449
28. The Language of Black Women in the Smoky Mountain Region of Appalachia
Christine Mallinson and Becky Childs 475
29. The Sound Symbolism of Self in Innovative Naming Practices in
an Af ri can Ameri can Community
Janis B. Nuckolls and Linda Beito 492
English in the Contemporary South: Black and White Speech
and the Complexities of Relationship
30. An Experiment on Cues Used for Identification of Voices as Af ri can Ameri can
or European Ameri can
Erik R. Thomas and Jeffrey Reaser 507
31. What We Hear and What It Expresses: The Perception and Meaning of
Vowel Differences among Dialects
Valerie Fridland and Kathryn Bartlett 523
32. A Quantitative Acoustic Approach to /ai/ Glide-W eakening among Detroit
Af ri can Americ an and Appalachian White South ern Migrants
Bridget L. Anderson 536
33. The Spread of the cot/caught Merger in the Speech of Memphians:
An Ethnolinguistic Marker?
Valerie Fridland 551
34. Phonological Variation in Louisiana ASL: An Exploratory Study
Robert Bayley and Ceil Lucas 565
English in the Contemporary South: Language and Identity
35. Constructing Identity: The Use of a- Prefixing and Nonstandard Past Tense
in Narration to Create a Community Voice
Allison Burkette 583
36. Negotiating Linguistic Capital in Economic Decline: Dialect Change in
Mill Villager and Farmer Speech
Lisa D. McNair 591
viii / Contents
37. Lexical Features of Jewish English in the South ern United States
Cynthia Bernstein 609
Louisiana French
38. Beyond Cajun: Toward an Expanded View of Regional French in Louisiana
Thomas A. Klingler 627
39. Whither Cajun French: Language Persistence and Dialectal Upsurges
Sylvie Dubois 641
Latino Language Issues
40. Is “Spanglish” the Third Language of the South? Truth and Fantasy
about US Spanish
John M. Lipski 657
41. Language Acquisition and Social Integration of Hispanics in
North east Mississippi
Patricia Manning Lestrade 678
42. Puerto Rican Spanish in South Texas: Variation in Subject Personal Pronouns
Carlos Martin Vélez Salas, Belinda Treviño Schouten,
Norma Cárdenas, and Robert Bayley 696
Language in the South and the Public Interest
43. Stylization, Aging, and Cultural Competence: Why Health Care in
the South Needs Linguistics
Boyd Davis and Dena Shenk 715
44. Sociolinguistic Engagement in Community Perspective
Walt Wolfram 731
Conclusion: Perspectives, Achievements, and Remaining Challenges
Walt Wolfram 748
Contributors 771
Index 773
Acknowledgments
The coeditors of New Perspectives on Language Variety in the South: His tori cal and
Contemporary Approaches gratefully acknowledge the many individuals, groups, and
associations whose vari ous contributions made possible the publication of this vol-
ume. It was an immense privilege to work with the 51 different authors, both veteran
and emerging scholars, whose research is on display in this volume and who so pa-
tiently awaited the appearance of the final product. We are especially indebted to our
advisory panel of experts for their invaluable counsel and for vetting every contri-
bution that appears in this volume prior to the submission of the manuscript to the
University of Ala bama Press: Drs. Guy Bailey (University of Texas Rio Grande Val-
ley), Cynthia Bern stein (University of Memphis), Barbara Johnstone (Carnegie Mellon
University), Thomas Klingler (Tulane University), William Kretzschmar (University
of Georgia), Sonja Lane hart (University of Texas at San Antonio), John Lipski (Penn-
sylvania State Univer sity), Michael B. Montgomery (University of South Carolina), Sa-
likoko Mufwene (University of Chicago), Pamela Munro (University of California, Los
Angeles), and Walt Wolfram (North Carolina State University). We are also indebted
to the anonymous reviewers selected by the University of Ala bama Press who took on
the gargantuan task of evaluating the entire manuscript. Greatly appreciated was the
willingness of the staff of the University of Ala bama Press to take on this large project
and to facilitate its completion, demonstrating inexhaustible patience in the process.
This volume would not have been possible without the benefit of an initial grant awarded
by the National Endowment for the Humanities (grant no. RZ- 50220- 04). Contribu-
tions toward a sizable publication subvention came from the College of Arts & Sci-
ences of the University of Ala bama, the Department of Modern Languages and Clas-
sics of the University of Ala bama, the Department of English of the University of
Ala bama, the Southeast ern Conference on Linguistics, the Ameri can Dialect Society,
Dr. Cynthia Bernstein, Dr. Connie C. Eble, Dr. Michael B. Montgomery, Dr. Patricia
Nichols, and an anonymous donor. For this generous support, the coeditors express
their deepest gratitude.