The Best of the Humanities Award

Emily Colegrove

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University

Shawnee State University

Major

Middle Childhood Education

Student Type

Undergraduate Student

Presentation Types

Oral Presentation

Keywords:

AppE, Stigma of dialect, non-standard features

Abstract

The paper explores the northern Kentucky variety of the Appalachian dialect (AppE) recorded in the South Shore, Kentucky. The goal of this research was to pinpoint any differences in accent, morphological, syntactic structure of speakers’ language, and vocabulary. The analysis of the recording uncovered phonological changes such as monophthongization as well as non-rhotic pronunciation of various words and vowel raising. The data also showed a surprising syntactic feature that was the use of inanimate agent construction along with the profuse use of double-negative constructions, etc. The vocabulary of the speakers was also very interesting due to the unique use of some of the items such as woodhen for ‘woodpecker’. The main argument of the paper is that these changes are nothing but systematically rule-governed and they don’t hinder the communication between speakers of standard and non-standard varieties. Therefore, these dialects should not be stigmatized in classrooms.

Human Subjects

yes

IRB Approval

yes

Faculty Mentor Name

Leila Lomashvili

Faculty Mentor Title

Dr. Associate Professor

Faculty Mentor Academic Department

English and Humanities

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Discovering Appalachian English: An Empirical Perspective

The paper explores the northern Kentucky variety of the Appalachian dialect (AppE) recorded in the South Shore, Kentucky. The goal of this research was to pinpoint any differences in accent, morphological, syntactic structure of speakers’ language, and vocabulary. The analysis of the recording uncovered phonological changes such as monophthongization as well as non-rhotic pronunciation of various words and vowel raising. The data also showed a surprising syntactic feature that was the use of inanimate agent construction along with the profuse use of double-negative constructions, etc. The vocabulary of the speakers was also very interesting due to the unique use of some of the items such as woodhen for ‘woodpecker’. The main argument of the paper is that these changes are nothing but systematically rule-governed and they don’t hinder the communication between speakers of standard and non-standard varieties. Therefore, these dialects should not be stigmatized in classrooms.