Social Life of Appalachian Englishes

Jennifer Cramer is Professor of Linguistics and Affiliate Faculty of Appalachian Studies at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA. She is the author of Contested Southernness (2016), co-editor of Cityscapes and Perceptual Dialectology (2016), and co-author of Linguistic Planets of Belief (2020) and English with an Accent (2022).Allison Burkette is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA, where she currently serves as Department Chair and as the Editor of the Linguistic Atlas Project. Burkette is the author of Language and Material Culture (2015) and Language and Classification (2018).

The Social Life of Appalachian Englishes offers the most thorough and engaging portrait of the language and culture of one of America’s most distinctive and iconic regions. The work stems from one of the most ambitious undertakings in dialectology, the Linguistic Atlas Project, and contextualizes the ensuing linguistic analyses in the voices and stories of Appalachian residents. This volume examines not only the history that gave birth to the ways of speaking throughout the Appalachian region, it offers a compelling commentary on how those ways of speaking are viewed from within and outside the region and why this matters. Additionally, the authors persuasively explain why learning more about Appalachian English is essential for anyone interested in language and culture, and in doing so, pays the region the homage it deserves.Jeffrey Reaser, North Carolina State University, USA

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsGlossaryChapter 1: “It tickles him so good” – The Social Life of Language in AppalachiaSetting inAppalachia as a constructPerceptions of AppalachiaThe study of languageIntroducing sociolinguisticsAppalachia in previous sociolinguistic studiesContextualizing Appalachian EnglishesRecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 2: “She’d write him a dun” – Words and MeaningsSetting inVariability in languageVocabulary in AppalachiaWhat the LAP can tell us about an ‘Appalachian vocabulary’Appalachian vocabulary features in the LAPA cottage industryFanning the lexical flamesOut of the fire and into the panWhere you put your groceriesRecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 3: “Build us a far” – Sounding AppalachianSetting inThe study of speech soundThe sounds of Appalachian EnglishesAppalachian pronunciation features in the LAPHwæt happened to the /h/?Intrusive consonants?One vowel or two?RecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 4: “They didn’t nobody starving” – Making Sense of Grammatical VariationSetting inThe study of grammarThe grammatical features of Appalachian EnglishesAppalachian grammatical features in the LAPGrowed up too fastWe was all waitingThree mile of bean plantsRecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 5: “All he's talked about up that mountain” – Discourse and NarrativeSetting inDiscourse, narrative, and meaningAppalachian discourses in the LAPExcerpt 1: That’s good cooking in thatExcerpt 2: Some people call ‘em pokes and thingsExcerpt 3: Them’s quilts or coverletsExcerpt 4: Well of course a pen [pɛn] if you say it distinctlyExcerpt 5: Who? What? Y’all?RecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 6: “Roots of my raisin” – Perceptions of Appalachian EnglishesSetting inPerceptual dialectologyMental mapsQualitative approachesInsiders and outsidersWhere are Appalachian Englishes?What are Appalachian Englishes?RecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesChapter 7: “A relatively distinct way of speaking” – Integrating Our UnderstandingsSetting inPutting the “dialect” in perceptual dialectologyMapping production and perceptionsPerception, production, and identityAppalachia(n) as ‘other’RecollectionDiscussion QuestionsExercisesBibliographyIndex