Family Feuds, Error, Word Crimes, and ORNL

The genesis of this post was a lively 'discussion' that I had with a family member. Most of you know me (and the fam), and know that we don't ever back down when we 'discuss' things that we are passionate about. I know, I know, those with Reed blood being argumentative (wait, I mean discursive...), a shocker, right? In all seriousness, some of the things we discussed also came up in popular culture, which I will make reference to later.

The 'discussion' (ok, argument) was about language. The other family member (a very intelligent, articulate professional) and I were discussing language and my research. We got to the idea that is fundamental to linguistics, that basically all varieties of language (dialects) are systematic and rule governed, and that native speakers don't make errors. (We weren't talking about ums and uhs or false starts, we were talking about structures that are non-mainstream). For example, double negatives. This is where an utterance has more than one negative word, such as 'I don't got none'. Now, before your heads explode, let me explain why this isn't an 'error'. Some of you will say, 'Two negatives make a positive', which is true in mathematics. But, that axiom is not true for language. In fact, that logic of two negatives making a positive isn't true for tons of languages, because they require double (or more) negatives for a sentence to be grammatical. A classic example is French 'je ne parle pas anglais', which is literally 'I no speak no English', or better 'I don't speak no English'. And there are hundreds of other languages that require the double negation. So, if 'logic' is your answer, then you'll have to say that other languages (and most varieties of English...) are completely illogical. Or, you could realize that rule is fake, hasn't ever really been part of language, doesn't reflect the actual usage of language, and was a bugaboo of some pedants from several hundred years ago. 

You might argue, as my family member did, that we are talking about English, not French (or Russian, or Spanish, or the hundreds of other languages). That's a valid statement, but not supported by language. Here's why: no native speaker would misinterpret 'I ain't got none' as the person having some. In fact, most non-natives wouldn't either. That statement means in any natural variety of English that the speaker doesn't possess any of whatever the topic of conversation is. I could further add that we don't use mathematical logic of negatives anywhere in language. For example, (I may have used this before, but it is still good...), if a toddler were about to put a penny in a light socket, and you said, 'Nonononononono', the child wouldn't add up the no's and then divide by 2 to check whether or not he/she should proceed with the electricity experiment. Additionally, multiple negation is present in Englishes spoken all over the world, from Great Britain to the US to South Africa to Australia and beyond. On a more technical note, 'I don't got none' has a subject (a Noun Phrase), and a predicate (a VP composed of do support with a negative marker, a verb, and an object [a pronoun that happens to have negative polarity]). No structure of English was absent. So, no 'rule' was broken. English simple sentences need a subject and a verb, with optional objects. This sentence meets those requirements, and has the optional object. My family member understood this, and was not arguing that English grammatical structures are inherently logical, but was adamant that certain constructions were inappropriate for certain contexts. Their point was about the fact that people react to language, and sometimes there are long-standing usages (in certain fields) that can be considered 'wrong'. Ah, I understood the miscommunication (see below for the denouement...).

This familial argument came right on the heels of Weird Al Yankovic's 'Word Crimes' parody going viral (if you haven't seen it, link). Full disclosure: I like Weird Al, and I think for the most part he's witty. I thought the song was funny (and much better than the original), but also terribly misinformed and in all actuality, quite mean. I won't belabor the point about why all the stuff Weird Al mentions aren't errors (much less crimes...), many others have done so much more eloquently than I could, see here and here. But, the fact remains that a song saying that native speakers can commit crimes with their language has millions of views and was shared all over my social media feeds. Why would something so pedantic be so popular?

Right after this, I heard about Oak Ridge National Laboratory's proposal for 'Southern accent reduction' classes for employees (link). Yes, the lab that has been in East Tennessee for over 7 decades now has some type of problem with Southern accents. Thankfully, they called this off (only after backlash and bad publicity). This is related to errors and Word Crimes because a perception that certain language usage (in this case, the way one sounds) is wrong. The main thrust of this is that Southern accents don't sound right in a very technical setting, so speakers would be worried about 'how they sound' rather than what they say. In sum, the Southern accent heard in a technical presentation at a lab would be a type of error or word crime. Not going to lie, this really really made me angry, for many reasons. The lab tried to say that it was merely acting out of regard for an employee's request. Fair enough, I respect that. But, the problem is deeper. Why would an employee want accent reduction if they are a native speaker of English? 

The heart of these issues is not really related to language itself. Most people don't like to hear this, but these notions are historically rooted in class and status. To say that a native speaker sounds wrong, does incorrect things, or commits word crimes isn't about the language itself. I showed earlier that the logic argument falls flat, so does the idea that it's an English thing, and native speakers don't commit fundamental errors. What these ideas are rooted in is that we put our feelings toward the people speaking onto their language, and we have immersed our culture in this negative feelings. We do this because we want to create and maintain social grouping and social status. 'Could care less' is wrong? No, but if I can deride someone else's usage, that somehow elevates me. Employees with Southern accents not appropriate for technical jargon? Only if you want to project your feelings about the South onto speakers, regardless of their personal capability. Now, not everyone who adheres to some of these notions are classists. My family member is certainly not a classist, but the notion was there. It's because of these long standing ideas that permeate our culture. That's why a song about stylistic things can be so popular. That's why a lab that has been in the south for generations can think offering Southern accent reduction is a good idea. Our society has been formed around the idea that there are some language features, accents, and varieties that are good; others are bad or wrong. At the core, however, it really isn't about language. It's about social grouping.

Now, I want to end this post with some caveats. There are social repercussions for language choices, trust me. I am a native son of Appalachia, proud of my homeland and my language. I know all about these repercussions for using non-mainstream forms. There are established mores for usage in all walks of society. If you are a journalist, your articles need to adhere to the style guides for whatever publication you write for. If you are on TV, you should adhere to the general customs of news broadcasters to be taken seriously. If you are at ComicCon, you better know your memes, pop culture references, and quotes to be accepted. If you are texting friends, you should probably throw in some emoji, textspeak, and maybe even, gasp, use numbers for words or you will sound weird. This isn't an argument for anything goes. As a linguist, I love the structure and rules of language. That is what lead me to my career path. To see how our minds create, manipulate, and bring grammar to life is what gets my academic blood pumping. However, I also know that these rules are completely arbitrary. They have arisen for lots of historical, social, and random reasons. They have changed, are changing, and will continue to change. That's part of what is so fascinating! So I know that language has rules, but native speakers don't break them. In fact, native speakers are the ones who make the rules! But, we are social animals, and we don't live in vacuums. We interact and form groups. For some groups, the need to demonstrate who is and, more importantly, who isn't a member is crucial. We want to show our membership, and one easy way is language. Some groups have animus toward other groups, so they disparage their culture, dress, and language. But, it isn't really the dress or language, it is the people who make up that group. Some groups elevate other groups, and want to emulate them. So they copy their culture, dress, language, etc. But it really isn't the dress or language, it is the status of the people in the group. 

So, finally, if you look down on a person or a group's language, think about why. Look at yourself and ponder what it really is that you think is so wrong. Is it really double negation, 'could care less', or whatever feature? Or the fact that feature is associated with people not in your group or a group you want to associate with?

Oh, yeah, and by the way, we ended the family argument learning from one another. My family member was referring to the appropriate usages based on long-standing distinctions (like those I mentioned earlier), and the possible bad reactions for using the inappropriate one. I showed that it really wasn't the language, and that there are social repercussions (the real root of our argument, my family member thought I was saying there weren't social repercussions). We both spoke our piece, and we both learned. And I think I won, they think they did, but more importantly, we still love one another deeply...that's how we Reeds roll.

Hillbilly from a hillbilly's perspective

Hillbilly.

One of those words that can be an insult, a term of endearment, an epithet, or a rallying cry. I have been called a 'hillbilly', and I've referred to myself as a 'hillbilly'. A quick google image search shows a plethora of terrible images, from toothless men in overalls to a strange picture that meshes Hillary and Bill Clinton's faces together (hill+billy = hillbilly... yeah, real witty...). But, few of these are positive, and most are downright negative and pretty offensive at that. Many times, people refer to a person as a hillbilly due to a lack of some kind of social refinement (i.e., something that doesn't adhere to expected urban/suburban norms). These are the sources of all the jokes and jests. Others use it as a term of endearment.

I am going to use the reaction about 'hillbilly' as a proxy for the Appalachian region as a whole. In my experience and research, people tend to have two reactions to Appalachia: a place that is home or a place that is somehow backward (or both, more on this shortly...). If you think about it, the term 'hillbilly' is very similar - a badge of honor or an insult. This, to my linguist and linguistic anthropologist friends, will be no surprise. Marginalized groups re-take the insults/epithets hurled at them and use them as a term of self-reference and pride/endearment, the academic term for this is 'reappropriation'. This is typically an attempt by a group without power to usurp those with power. By reappropriating the term, i.e., using it as a source of pride, the maligned group removes the ability of the word to belittle (at least in theory). But, as always there are many dynamics at play. Most of the time, you have to be a member of the group to use the term in its reappropriated way. If not, it can and will be interpreted as an insult, the previous meaning. Those who are not members of this group routinely misunderstand this as thinking it's okay to say the term (think the 'n-word' and African-Americans as another example) because members of the group use it with one another. This is, obviously, not the case.

Back to 'hillbilly'. Its roots are in Ulster (Northern Ireland) and Scotland. The majority of settlers into Appalachia were Ulster-Scots (also called Scotch-Irish). In lowland Scots, there were two terms, 'hill-folk' and 'billie'. The latter basically meant 'guy, dude, bloke'. So, melding these two terms you get 'hill-billie', meaning a person from the hills (Harkins 2003, Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon). The original meaning was something relatively innocuous, to reference where a person was from. So, why the change to a (possibly) pejorative?

I have made it clear in earlier posts how the shift can happen (check them below!), so I won't belabor the point here. To quickly rehash, the Appalachian region was considered the wild frontier, thus those from there were wild. Then, as other regions progressed technologically and economically, the region was seen as backward, and its inhabitants too.

This post came to mind for two reasons. One, this article by Annie Lowery in the NY Times about Eastern Kentucky. She looks at data about Eastern Kentucky. The data is very grim, and her solution is basically to leave. The most maddening part is where she calls Appalachia and the Deep South a 'smudge'. While no one can refute the data (facts are facts), she doesn't seem to even try to understand why someone would want to stay. The history, connection, or roots to a region apparently mean nothing, and leaving is the only option. The second reason this post came up was this brilliant response by Silas House. He responds to Lowery, and does it in a way that puts into words how so many feel. (Full disclosure: Silas House is one of my literary heroes. His novels are some of my absolute favorites, and I am an unabashed fan. This doesn't change the fact that his blog post expresses the complexity of how many feel about their home region.)

In the end, Lowery's article basically says that to live any kind of life, people in Eastern KY need to leave. House's response is essentially maybe there is more to it than what an outsider sees. It's the same with the term 'hillbilly', and the region as a whole. Outsiders see the backward nature, the poverty, the destruction -- and wonder how could anyone want to live there? Or even be associated with such a place? Insiders, and I am proud to call myself one, see something else. We see the negatives. The poverty, the environmental degradation, the exploitation by politicians and industry is readily seen. But, we also see something else. We see home, we see history, we see potential. I have said many times that as the land rises, so do my spirits. There is a special calling of home, especially when your home is so misunderstood. That is why I am a hillbilly, and may I forever be one.

'As the horizon shortens, and land falls back,
Majestic as they rise, these pillars this beauty,
My soul worships at the altar
of these Cathedrals of Earth'

Privilege and language

Sorry for the temporary hiatus, it's been a busy few weeks! I'll try to post more regularly in the future, at least once a week.

This post is going to be a little different than some, as I'm not going to completely focus on Appalachian language, though it will be referenced. So, dear readers, please plow on. I'm sure we've all heard the term 'privilege' in the past few weeks. It's been in the news cycle for various reasons (the Princeton student's essay, the myriad responses here here, you can also just google it yourself). However, the actual concept of privilege is hard to grasp for most people I know. I think it's because for many people who grew up in the South, especially the rural South, the privilege that some have isn't as obvious as a fairly wealthy kid who is at an Ivy League school complaining about how he doesn't acknowledge or doesn't have privilege. As usual, I'll use language examples to demonstrate how privilege works, and I hope they will clarify it a bit.

First off, some definitions are needed. When people are referring to something like privilege, they are talking about an entire group of people. It isn't an individual thing, which is part of the difficulty in understanding sometimes. When privilege is referenced, it is about the particular advantages that a group as a whole enjoys, not that a particular individual has. Also, the idea of intersectionality must be mentioned. The various aspects of our identity intersect one another in lots of different ways. We are simultaneously many things because we belong and are associated with many different groups, and each of those may have different privileges or not. A straight white male and a gay white male share intersections of whiteness and male-ness, but not sexuality. Thus, the white male privilege and the lack of gay privilege will have various manifestations depending on the situation. Sometimes a small change in situation can demonstrate the prejudices (and thus lack of privilege) that one aspect of our identity possesses.

Let's dig in. I am a straight, educated, white male. I have basically all the privilege that can be had. So, what exactly does this mean for me individually? Here's what it means: I have not had to avoid and overcome any negative personality characteristics that my group as a whole connotes for others. A concrete example, when I talk in my educated register (which is pretty mainstream. I know, I know, even the Mountain Man succumbs to societal pressure sometimes), there are no widely circulating negative stereotypes that are brought to mind to those that hear me (maybe just being nerdy, but that really isn't negative). In that particular register, I don't have to change anything about my speech. It naturally carries a bit of gravitas and authority. However, when I'm teaching, as a way to demonstrate linguistic prejudice (and therefore privilege), I will shift into my full-on East Tennessee register, like the one I use at home with family and with friends. The looks on my students' faces are pretty priceless. I ask, 'If you walked into class and heard that, what would you think?'. The response is pretty much unanimous, 'We would think you were a dumb hick.' I follow up and ask, 'Would you think I was as capable as when I was speaking the other way?'. Again, the response is pretty powerful, 'No, we wouldn't.' The Appalachian accent, and as an extension the Appalachian part of my identity, does not have the same privilege as the other parts. Now, you may say that's a silly example. You may say that nothing has changed about me, it's just the perception in my students' head. However, that's the point. I am no different, but the perception brought on by cultural connotations takes over. My students think that I am less intelligent, less worth listening to, and less capable just because my accent is different. That accent doesn't have any privilege; in fact, it has direct negative associations, such as being stupid, lazy, less credible, less capable, etc., because of history and culture, even though those associations are false.

Now, what if the perception trigger was different and impossible to change, like skin color (no Michael Jackson jokes, okay? Be mature...)? How do you overcome the negative connotations of personality or abilities (and thus lack of privilege) that arise in some people, remembering that the connotations can be based on false ideas? I can slightly alter my accent (although I do this less and less now, fightin' back against this BS), and then enjoy the white privilege that the accident of birth gave to people whose skin is tinted my shade. Does that mean I have more or less ability/capability/intelligence than someone who isn't white? Absolutely not, not in the slightest. What it means is that I don't have to face the associations that blackness has in our society. What would that mean? Well, to be blunt, that means that some people perceive someone with high levels of melanin in their skin as less intelligent, more inclined to criminal behavior, dependent on government handouts, and basically dangerous (among other things). That would mean that person, due simply to the color of their skin, would be less capable, less likely to be hired, more likely to face police inquiry, etc. What about the vast majority of those who have more melanin who are smart, law-abiding, hard-working? What does that mean for them? Sadly, that means they are lumped into that same group, even though the associations are patently false. The negative perceptions are placed on them, regardless of their individual histories and individual abilities. Now, someone whose skin has less melanin does not have these negative stereotypes and perceptions placed on them. So, as a result, they are more likely to be seen as intelligent, more likely to be seen as law-abiding, more likely to be hired, etc. That is how privilege works. You have (or potentially have access to) some power or opportunity that someone else does not, not because of anything you have done or not done, but because you happen to be a member of a group.

Another example. I am a cisgender (just google it, it'll be faster than explaining it) male. Just because of my chromosomes and how I identify with the expression of those chromosomes (an identification that lines up with certain societal expectations), I don't have certain negative associations that some people place on those whose chromosomes or identity are different. Due to the patriarchal and misogynistic history of most of the world's cultures (especially Western cultures), a cisgender male (like myself) is seen as fitting in certain roles and occupations, having certain personality traits, and possessing certain abilities. However, those that are not cisgender males have a second class status. As a result, I am seen as more authoritative, more capable, and more worthy of respect. This isn't due to anything that I do, have done, or will do, rather just because I am biologically male and I express my biological sex in a manner that lines up with certain societal expectations.

Here are two gendered social expectation examples, and both of which routinely drive me crazy: my wife is a brilliant and talented dentist, i.e. she is a doctor. When we are introduced to people who do not know us, one of the typical questions is: what do you do? I respond, 'I'm a PhD student in linguistics.' My wife responds, 'I'm a dentist.' The response to me, 'Oh how interesting! How many languages do you speak?'. The typical response to my wife, 'Oh, a hygienist. Do you like cleaning teeth?'. Now, what do you notice? The response to me is one of complete understanding of the implications of my pursuits, even though there is a lack of understanding as to what linguistics is. The response to my wife is one of misunderstanding, even though most people have been to the dentist or know what a dentist does. The assumption is because she is a cisgender female, she must be a dental hygienist. Why? Because the societal expectation is that she must be a hygienist, not a dentist, because only men are dentists. The other example is from filling out online donation forms for a particular entity. I was filling it out, there were two sections, one for the donor and a section for the spouse. For the title/honorific of the main donor, there was a drop-down menu. It had everything from Mr. (mister) to Dr. (doctor) to Rev. (reverend) to Adm. (admiral). For the spouse, there were only Miss, Ms., and Mrs. Now, what do you notice? A slight discrepancy, right? What about a spouse who was a doctor, a major, or something? Or what if the wife was the main donor? I immediately wrote the entity and complained. Now, you may say each of those examples are trivial. But, they reveal some deep rooted ideas in our society. Women can only hold certain positions and only have titles related to marital status, and if they deviate from these expectations, our collective minds are blown. Just because of my anatomy and how I identify with that anatomy, I am (expected?) able to hold a variety of positions and have a variety of titles. Thus, a small example of male privilege.

These are a few examples of privilege and how it is manifested in language (both in dialect prejudice and gendered titles). Language reflects culture and cultural expectations. This is the lens that I tend to understand and explain things. I hope this post has illuminated the notion of privilege, in some small way. These ideas are deeply rooted, and many times, we don't even notice them. The first step to 'checking your privilege' is just to recognize it, which is often the hardest part. I see it in some ways (more and more just by paying attention), but I'm sure I have huge glaring blind spots in others.

Following up on the Research help...

Hello again all! I just wanted to send out a huge thank you to everyone who participated in/shared/suffered through my experimental surveys a couple weeks ago. Now that I've crunched the numbers, I can give a quick overview of what we were after.

If you took the surveys, you heard a particularly velvety baritone (ok, not velvety. And probably more of a bass...) saying sentences with combinations like might could and might would. There were some that had not in different locations (e.g. after might, after could, after both), have in various places (same), and also contracted n't and 've in various places (same). Some of these probably sounded very natural and others very unnatural. This, of course, is based on whether or not you actually use these combinations naturally or are around people that use these combinations naturally. Phrases like might could are called 'double modals'. A modal is a verb that indicates the possibility, likelihood, obligation, or ability from the speaker's perspective of the action that follows. For example, I might go vs. I will go. Might and will are both modals, and you see how they affect the following action. However, when there are two (or more!) modals, things get tricky. See, some varieties of English don't allow more than one modal. Judging by the ratings, a lot of you that took the survey didn't like them. That just means that they aren't part of your grammar (the system of rules/tendencies of the language that you speak). Others liked certain combinations fine, but others weren't so good. For example, I might could've gone is perfectly acceptable to many of the double modal speakers, but I might've could gone was not acceptable. What is incredibly interesting is that the non-double modal speakers also had some intuition about this. Even though their grammar doesn't permit double modals, they knew/know that the 've can attach more easily to the second modal rather than the first, even if they don't use/accept the combination itself. Cool, huh? This means that there are different systems of English (pretty cool in and of itself) yet speakers have some intuitions (because the varieties are still a type of English). Even cooler, right?

The main point of our work was to see where the negation would go, where the have would go, and others to move toward understanding the structure of the double modals. From this, we can test whether both modals are functioning as verbs or not (spoiler alert: it appears to be no!). This means that one of them looks like a verb, sounds like a verb, but isn't a verb. Our initial finding is that the second modal is an actual modal, but the first is doing some thing else... Check back soon to hear more!

Thanks again for all the help!

What exactly does a linguist do?

If you are reading this, the question that this blog is titled has probably occurred to you. Most of you know me (or at least find my musing reasonably interesting...), but you may not exactly know what I do. You may have read some of the posts about stereotypes, pin/pen, and double modals, and wondered exactly what the heck I'm talking about (or what it matters...). So, that is the subject of this post.

Some of you are probably thinking, 'A linguist is someone who speaks a bunch of languages. How many do you speak?'. It's a typical question that we linguists always get. It makes sense; most people assume that to study language means that you study them to speak them. And, most linguists do speak several languages. But, we actually study the human language capacity (or, if you like Language with a capital L), that is how we as humans communicate with language. I know, I know, it sounds really weird. More specifically, we study Language scientifically. This means that we study why and how we speak/sign the way we do, how that speech/sign is organized (and why it isn't organized another way), what we signal about ourselves with that particular speech/sign, and what we try to accomplish with that speech/sign.

A brief tangent:
You notice that I am saying speech/sign. Sign language is organized in a very similar way to spoken language. It isn't spelling out a language or pantomime; it is a full-blown language, just like speech but a different 'modality' (how the actual act is carried out).

Back to the main point:
So, I study Language. There are many different ways to do this, depending on your particular interests. Some, like me, are really interested in sound. I study how we make sounds (articulation) and how those sounds travel through the air (acoustics), and how we interpret those sounds (perception), thus I am a phonetician. Specifically, I look at how we signal our social groupings and identifications with our speech sounds (I am a socio-phonetician). Others look at how sounds pattern together (phonology). They, phonologists, look at what sounds actually carry meaning (broadly defined) in a language (like how /b/ and /p/ mean something in English, so bout and pout are different words with different meanings, and changing that first sound changes the meaning), and what particular combinations of these meaningful sounds are allowable in certain languages, and try to understand why those particular combinations are allowed and others are not (like how 'brost' could be an English word, but 'pfabm' couldn't be). It is a little more abstract than phonetics.

Some people like words. They look at how words are built in various languages (morphology), and what little bits carry meaning, like how adding -s to some English words means 'more than one' (table to tables) or to others means who did an action (help to helps [this varies widely depending on the English variety, but I hope you get the idea]). Now, this kinda makes sense to many people, because some of this is covered in English class in elementary/middle/high school. So, we are familiar with the idea of 'adding -ed' or something. But, it is more than that. Morphologists look at how these little bits, when solo or combined, create 'meaning' (again broadly defined). They look at how speakers/signers build meaningful units (we think of them as words, but not all languages have what we would consider words per se, I'll touch on this in some later post!).

Some linguists like sentences. Their focus is how phrases are built (syntax) and the underlying organization of groups of meaningful units (words...). This is what many people think of when they think of grammar. They look at how these larger meaning units (like a noun phrase) are constructed and how they behave (such as how to focus on different parts of a sentence).

Others like focusing on how we create meaning with sentences. There are two main types of this: semantics and pragmatics. Semantics looks at how the meaning is built language internally. Pragmatics looks at how meaning is built in the world. For example, a person could say, 'What day is it?'. A semanticist looks at how the meaning is built with the interrogative word, the noun 'day', etc. A pragmatist might look at how this sentence is used in practice, such as a person writing a check (a request for information) or a parent to a child (as a reminder to take out the trash because it's Tuesday).

There are subfields within the broad field also. Some look at the neurological bases for language (neurolinguistics); a person might look at where sound/morphology/syntax is in the brain. Others look at how language is processed (pyscholinguistics), focusing perhaps on sound/morphology/syntax differences and how each is processed faster/slower. Language acquisition (both first language and second language) look at how infants and children acquire language (first language) and/or how learners of second/third/etc languages acquire language. How they acquire means what happens in what order, such as are verbs first? If so, which verbs, or interestingly, what impact does a first language have on the second? Do learners transfer structure? If so, which? (you get the idea!) Historical linguistics looks at language change and how languages develop over time, and how languages are historically related (like how did Latin become Spanish/French/Portuguese/Italian/Romanian). Linguistic anthropology investigates language in culture, and how the two are intertwined. My particular subfield is sociolinguistics. This looks at how speakers express their social groupings.

So, the short answer is a linguist studies language, in all of its wonderful variety!

Oh, and by the way, I speak English natively, Spanish at an advanced level, Portuguese at an intermediate level, tourist level French, Spanish, and German (i.e. potentially find a bathroom and maybe order food...), a smattering of phrases from lots of languages, and I can read Latin well and Greek a little and Old Germanic languages (Old English/Norse/Frisian/High German) a little bit. So, there you go!

Research Help Needed!

Greetings all! 

I'm continuing to work on a project about how people feel about different types of sentences. I'd love some more participants! The links are NOT mobile optimized, so please take them from a desktop or laptop. Here's the announcement:

My name is Paul Reed. I'm a PhD candidate in the Linguistics Program at the University of South Carolina. I am working on a project with Dr. Stan Dubinsky and I am writing to see if you would be willing to take a few minutes to take some surveys to help facilitate our research (the links for which are included at the bottom of this post in no particular order). The experiments that we're asking you to participate in are part of a project aimed at finding out more about how the English language works, (in particular) examining how Modern American English is perceived. Each survey involves rating sound clips based on the acceptability of various sentences and should only take about 15 minutes to do. There are no restrictions on participation eligibility; we welcome responses from anyone that is interested, including: students, faculty/staff, and anyone outside of academia, as well as both native and non-native speakers of English. Please feel free to pass this request along to anyone that you think might be interested in participating. There is no compensation offered for participating, except, of course, the good feeling of helping someone out!

If you have questions or feedback, feel free to contact me at reedpe@email.sc.edu.

Thanks!

Survey 1

http://moore.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_38C3xFB9qcttGO9

Survey 2

http://moore.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_cZJtQyHsuwS2Prf

In the mountains they talk like Shakespeare...

So, in my last post, I talked about mountain stereotypes and gave a little background to where they came from. However, there are other stereotypes about the mountains that come from the inside, that is, natives to the region. One of the big ones is that the speech of the mountains is like that of Shakespeare. Or Chaucer. Or some other literary giant from some unspecified point in the past. It's almost a reflex, as people will bring this up usually as a retort to some slight about culture or speech. It usually goes like this: Person A (from the mountains) says something that reflects mountain heritage; Person B says that it's wrong/weird/incorrect etc. Person A replies with the Literary Giant from the Past idea.

But, Shakespeare and Chaucer were not contemporaries. In fact, Chaucer lived from 1343-1400, whereas Shakespeare lived from 1564-1616, roughly two hundred years later. The English that each spoke was not the same (just google 'Romeo and Juliet' and read a few lines in the original. Then google 'The Canterbury Tales' and read a few lines in the original. Not the same!). Shakespeare would've spoken and did write in Early Modern English, and it's fairly comprehensible to most of us modern speakers. We can read it decently well. But, it would've sounded a little strange, and to understand it would have been more difficult. Below is a fascinating video showing how it might've sounded (plus it's a cool video in general).

Here's a link in case it won't play...

Chaucer wrote in and would've spoken Middle English, and it would not have been very comprehensible to us at all, below is a video.

here's a link just in case.

Now, I've heard lots and lots of mountain voices in my life, but none sound like either one of these!

This idea also has a fundamental misunderstanding of language and language change. Language is constantly changing, from word meanings (tweet...) to new words (blog...) to word order/syntax (want to go with?) to pronunciation as in the videos above. Language never stands still. It is constantly in flux. You can listen to your grandparents or great-grandparents and hear the difference (or listen to your grandchildren or great-grandchildren!), notice new usages that are slightly unfamiliar, etc. Then just imagine 400 or 600 years of little changes (which become slightly bigger changes, and even bigger changes, you get the idea!). Hard to see how we can speak like either one!

But, getting back to my main point. Why do we feel we have to invoke this Literary Giant of the Past idea? Let's reflect just a minute about this. Why would we (and I include myself because I've said it too) say this? What are we actually doing? At its core, what we're doing is saying that whatever Person B reacted to is worthy because it has a fine literary tradition and is associated with the great English of the past. We feel as if the way we speak is not worthy in and of itself; we must borrow prestige from the past. It's high time we started to recognize that our way of speaking is just as worthwhile as any other variety. All ways of speaking have worth. There is no need to rely on some other sense of worth (from the past, literary, or any). The way we speak reflects where we are from, who raised us, who we associate with, basically who we are. Some may not like that and want to change. Others will want to embrace it. It's time to stop the stigma without relying on a false idea of sounding like Shakespeare or Chaucer. No one needs to rely on outside sources of prestige to justify how they sound. If someone doesn't like the way we sound, that reflects them and their prejudices and not the way we speak.

Stereotypes and the Mountains...

One thing that everyone from the mountains knows about is the fact that lots of people don't know anything about the mountains, but think they do. This has been highlighted recently with the water contamination tragedy in WVa. Many people have tweeted, posted, and said many ignorant things about the people of WVa (I am most decidedly not going to repeat the stuff, but we all could guess what they mentioned). By extension, they are talking about all of us mountain folk. Just a few months ago, DirectTV aired a pretty offensive commercial about mountain people, and had to pull it and apologize (Google it, but be prepared to be pis-, er, I mean upset...). Mountain people seem to just invite mis-characterization (as well as other groups, as I'll discuss below).

People caricature the mountain people in lots of ways. I will always remember two big stories. The first is while I was on a trip to NYC for a basketball visit. One of the players at the school I visited heard me talk, and asked where I was from. I replied, 'East Tennessee.' He laughed, and said something about how it was easy to tell. He then asked, 'So, like, do you guys even have phones there?'. I replied, 'Nope, we have a bunch of cans and lots of string. Of course we have phones! Do you guys even know what good air smells like?'. Not the best sarcastic retort I've ever said, but I think it did the trick. The second story is when a friend and I were in line at a fast food joint. This particular friend ordered his food, and some guy behind us said, sort of under his breath to his friend but loud enough for us to hear, 'What rock did this guy come out from under?'. My friend, unfazed, turned and calmly asked, 'Do you know anything about algorithms?'. The other guy replied, 'No.'. My friend, 'What about soil acidity or alkalinity? Or the ways to understand (something I don't remember but sounded really complicated)?'. Dude's reply, 'No. I don't even know what that is.' My friend, with the best retort ever, said, 'Well, that's what I thought. Now, just because my mouth moves slow doesn't mean my brain does. Can't say the same for you.' He then casually walked away. Now, obviously, that was a pretty cutting remark. But, why would someone say these things about a stranger? It's because our language causes people to make judgments.

This is, as you've probably guessed, stereotyping. The question is, why are the mountains and the people who live there such an object of stereotyping? Why have our language varieties been so stigmatized? Well, this is obviously a complex question with a complex bunch of answers, but I'll try to summarize what people have said and add my own two cents.

Most things that people say about the mountains and our language(s) are not original. In fact, most of them began in the late 19th century, from about 1880 on. A particular kind of popular literature, local color, was popularized. This writing focused on far-flung locales and unique places in the US and around the world. The idea was to find an area that was 'different', compose a description or a story about that area focusing primarily on the differences. Now, as I'm sure you're guessing, this isn't a great way to get factual information. Focusing on what is the most different while ignoring the similarities, in any area of life, is most likely going to devolve into stereotyping. With regard to Appalachia, there were many things that were different from a burgeoning middle class, East Coast urban norm. But, there were lots of similarities. Yet, the writers focused on what was most different. (This idea is more fully developed in Henry Shapiro's Appalachia on our Mind, a must read for anyone interested in the region. There are many other great sources. I'd be happy to point you to them, just contact me.)

So, the most different things were written about, and of course language was one of them. The characters in some of the literature (such as John Fox Jr., Mary Murphree, or George Washington Irving, to name a few) are flat hard to understand at times. So, readers got the impression that the people from the mountains talked 'funny'.

Here's the thing about language. We tend to place how we feel about a group onto the way that group talks. So, when someone feels that mountain people are stupid, ignorant, inbred, etc, their way of speaking is characterized the same way. The same thing happens with women's speech. People who think women are emotional, needy, weak, etc. say that the way women talk is the same. The same with African American speech. The same with all groups. We say that a particular way of speaking is (insert adjective here), not because the language is like that, rather because we feel that way about the group who speaks like that.

The really insidious thing is that, oftentimes, that disparaged group buys into the stereotypes. How many of us Appalachian people have ever said 'we don't talk correctly/proper/well'? What about other groups? Same thing for them. We've (and they've) heard it so much that it becomes almost like a truth. It's like we think, 'Well, if so many say it, it must be true.' So, we buy in (not all or in all ways, but some). I'll explore some reactions in my next post.

We don't call this what it really is: prejudice. Language isn't lazy or uneducated. People may be, but language isn't. And you know what? There are lazy and uneducated people in all groups. There are also really hardworking and educated people in every group. No group is monolithic or without variation. Anytime we try to fit a group into a single box (or limited boxes), we are showing more about ourselves and our own lack of understanding than the group we are trying to put down.

Where you'uns from? Dialect in the media

Well, I'm back to the blogosphere after a holiday break. I traveled a lot, and had a merry time with family, and I hope everyone had the chance to do the same.

Over the break, I was thinking about possible topics, and one popped right out of social media. Many people took the NYT's dialect quiz, and were quite surprised by the results. Some of our mountain brethren and sistren were taken aback by reading that their closest 'city' was somewhere flat. So, a brief word about dialect maps and the popular notion of dialects.

First off, the maps were/are cool. Anytime language variation gets positive attention in the media and social media, I am for it. However, there were a few issues. There weren't enough questions, and the questions that were contained were mainly lexical (what word do you have for X). The other questions were really broad (how do you say the vowel sound in X). They pulled those questions from something much larger and more refined. I understand why; it was meant to be fun and fast. But, the biggest issue is that everyone's lexicon changes A LOT over time. For example, growing up in rural Appalachia, we didn't have a road that went parallel to the interstate/freeway. I mean, we had to drive 45 minutes to get to an interstate/freeway, so I was barely aware of the nuances. So, what word do I use? Well, I lived in TX for a while, where people say frontage road. So, that's the word I use. But, I also understand access road, which is very common. Also, with the word caramel. Different members of my family say it the two main ways, the two syllable version and the three syllable version. I think I actually vary in how I say it. So, I liked the maps, but again, we need to recognize their limitations.

Moving to the popular idea of dialects will require more words, so hold on and bear with me (this usually takes an entire class period, and reminders for an entire semester, so I apologize now for the length of this). When many people think of dialects, there are two common notions. One is that a dialect is somehow inferior to the 'standard' or 'mainstream'. The other is that everyone in a particular area (say the South, or NYC, or Boston) speaks a dialect, and other areas (like the Midwest) don't. First off, we all speak dialects, and everyone speaks more than one. A dialect (or as we linguists usually refer to them, a variety) is just a rule-governed system of language spoken by a group of people. I want to highlight two ideas: rule-governed and group of people. All native speakers of any language variety on this planet speak a rule-governed language. Now, you may be thinking, 'What about people who say (thing that I think is wrong or have been told is wrong)?'. An example can help. Let's start with a bugaboo for many people, double negation. We've all heard the cliche 'two negative make a positive' from either a teacher, parent, or someone. According to this logic, a statement like 'I don't got no money' would mean that the speaker actually has money. Now, would any native speaker of English really interpret this sentence that way? I say no. Or, perhaps more tellingly, say a child is about to put a penny in a light socket. A nearby person says, 'No, no, no, no!!!'. Does the child count the 'no's', divide by 2, realize that the negatives cancel, and then say, 'Aha! Even number, negation cancelled. That means I can continue by electricity experiment!'. Obviously not. Besides this, there are languages (French, Spanish, many others) where double negation is *required*, as in 'Je ne parlez pas anglais', which is literally 'I no speak no English'. Now, is the entire French language illogical? Of course not. So, what about those rules I mentioned? Linguistically, rules are more like ways of defining how a system works (kind of like laws of physics, descriptions of how things behave). When I say that there are rules of language, what I mean is that certain things are common among native speakers and are allowable in a given language or variety, and other things are not. So, in lots of varieties of English, I can say, 'I ain't got no money.'. Technically, I have broken no rule of English. There is a subject: I, a verb: ain't got, and a direct object: money, with a negative marker: no. English usually requires a subject, verb, and often needs an object. So, what rule was broken? No linguistic rule. Now, before I get the emails about how I am saying anything goes, a sentence like Over the I ball fence hit the is not English (in any variety). Why? Because it does not adhere to what native speakers do. There is no variety of English that I am aware of that would call this sentence allowable. But, there are many varieties that allow double negation and other things. However, there is a social side to language also, perhaps even more important. We are judged, positively and negatively, on how we speak and write. Some things that are totally fine spoken in one arena of life, say with family, may not be in other areas. Or sometimes the way we write is different from how we speak. I liken this to clothing. There are some clothes that are appropriate for a fancy dinner, but a tux at a sports bar would be a bit out of place. The same can be said for sweat pants and a T-shirt. Great for hanging out at home or somewhere really casual. Not so good for an awards ceremony. There is no rule preventing me from rocking a sweet zoot suit tux when I want to watch a ball game with my friends. However, I expect that there will be jokes (a lot of them...). Or if I wore gym shorts and a T-shirt to a formal dinner, I might get some weird looks and probably I won't be asked back. Was I wrong? No, I wasn't indecent in either case (or breaking any laws), but there were certain expectations about what to wear. Now, these expectations change. No one I know wears a powdered wig anywhere, but that was the style in the 1700s. Do we lambast people who don't wear powdered wigs anymore? No, but people did. As style changed, behavior changed. Some people didn't like it, but that passed.

The same thing happens with language. The rules, which describe behavior, change as the behavior changes. We don't say thee or thou very much anymore, so the rules of how to use them have definitely changed. Very few people in the U.S. pronounce vowels like in Great Britain, so that has changed. The behavior changed, and thus, so did the rules. This is a part of language.

In fact, language varies in time, space, and within space. We all know that our grandparents sound a little (or a lot) different than us, as do our parents. We also know that people in different areas sound a little different (vowels and consonants) or use different words (like schlep or gum band or holler). We also know that people who hang out together sound a lot alike and/or use words to demonstrate membership in a group. Education, group, sex/gender, language varies by all of these and more. I think this is the coolest part of language. It is so complex, yet we all can use it. There are so many ways it can vary, yet we can still communicate.