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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/