Hi All,
FYI. Historically, many upper-class southern men were
educated in the North at West Point and other
universities and schools and/or spent time abroad on
trade missions and the like. So, they tended to have
a different accent than upper-class women who tended
to live only in the South. So, women historically
probably had heavier accents so one gets the
sterotyped 'Southern Belle'.
Best, Mike
--- "Glauner, Jeff" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> You're right about attitudes toward dialect. You
> probably did your survey
> in California where you would expect reactions like
> the ones you got.
> Unfortunately, you'd get much the same in states
> where southern dialects are
> standard. Labov got those sorts of reactions to
> pronunciation in New York
> City. So in describing attitudes, the term class is
> probably indispensable.
> I would, however, like to see us move away from the
> use of terms in our
> general discussion of dialect that seem to imply a
> social hierarchy of
> better and worse people based upon dialect.
>
> I'm not trying to be politically correct. I get in
> trouble constantly for
> not being politically correct. I just hate what
> they are trying to do in
> Texas to their drawl. I visited Houston recently
> and discovered that many
> native Texans have quit drawling. I miss that
> lopsided little heist of the
> upper lip. When I asked about the negative attitude
> toward the Texas
> dialect, I was told that it was an economic thang.
> No classy jobs for
> drawlers.
>
> Jeff Glauner
> Associate Professor of English
> Park University, Box 1303
> 8700 River Park Drive
> Parkville MO 64152
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.park.edu/jglauner/index.htm
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 2:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: who or whom
>
>
> Thanks, Jeff, you've nicely depicted how messy it is
> to try to delimit
> and label dialects. Finding social features that
> consistently align with
> dialect features is probably impossible, especially
> if you want a
> fine-grained analysis.
>
> Perhaps objectively and scientifically class isn't a
> correct defining
> parameter for dialect differences in our society.
> When we consider
> language attitudes, however, I think class is an
> important social
> construct precisely because of the superior/inferior
> values that are
> attached to it. In a Hairston-like survey that I did
> with a class of
> mine, we found that dialect features associated with
> less-educated
> speakers (such as double negation and third-person
> 'don't') elicited far
> more consistently negative responses than dialect
> features that are
> nonstandard (that is, incorrect from the trad.
> grammar point of view)
> but appear in the dialect of educated speakers (such
> as 'between you and
> I' or failure to use 'whom' in an object position).
> Judging from their
> self-idenitifications, most of our respondents held
> positions that would
> be considered middle to upper-class. So the kinds of
> 'mistakes' that
> they themselves might make were judged much more
> acceptable than the
> kinds of 'mistakes' that people from less-successful
> groups might make.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State
> University
> One Grand Avenue * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184 * Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept.
> Phone. 756-2596
> * E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page:
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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=====
Mike Garant, Senior Lecturer
(I'll be moving to the University of Tampere, Finland and Tampere Polytechnic in September)
University of Helsinki Department of Translation Studies in Kouvola
P.O. Box 94, FIN-45101 Kouvola, Finland TEL 05 825 2210 FAX 05 825 2251
Associate Editor of AEQ: http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/
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