Mobilities, Materialities, And The Changing Meanings Of Pittsburgh Speech, Barbara Johnstone, Calvin Pollak
Aug 2016
Mobilities, Materialities, And The Changing Meanings Of Pittsburgh Speech, Barbara Johnstone, Calvin Pollak
Barbara Johnstone
For many decades, people in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area have talked about local speech. “Pittsburghese,” as it is locally known, has become so tightly linked with local identity that it is alluded to almost every time someone talks about what Pittsburgh is like or what it means to be a Pittsburgher. But the set of words, pronunciations, and bits of grammar that are thought of as Pittsburghese has changed over time. This paper explores the role of social and geographic mobility in creating and circulating the ideas about Pittsburgh speech that help to determine who uses local-sounding speech features and …
Language Theory In Contemporary Sociolinguistics: Beyond Dell Hymes?, Barbara Johnstone
Dec 2015
Language Theory In Contemporary Sociolinguistics: Beyond Dell Hymes?, Barbara Johnstone
Barbara Johnstone
Language in Society was founded, in 1972, specifically to publish research related to “all the interrelations of language and social life” (Hymes 1972: 2). The journal’s founding editor, Dell Hymes, hoped that the journal would help lead to “a reconstruction of social theory in the light of linguistic methods and findings, and of linguistic theory on a social basis” (p. 2). When it came to the latter of these goals, Hymes hoped for a “broad conception of language and its relevance” (p. 3), broader than that of the “central thread” of twentieth-century linguistic theory, with its focus on reference at …
'Oral Versions Of Personal Experience’: Labovian Narrative Analysis And Its Uptake, Barbara Johnstone
Dec 2015
'Oral Versions Of Personal Experience’: Labovian Narrative Analysis And Its Uptake, Barbara Johnstone
Barbara Johnstone
William Labov is known across the human and social sciences for his work on oral narratives about personal experience. This article provides an overview of that research and discusses its uptake and influence in linguistics and in other fields. Subsequent scholarship on narrative has critiqued Labov’s model on the grounds that it privileges a certain genre of personal-experience narrative and underplays the role of interlocutors and other contextual features in shaping oral narratives, but such scholarship inevitably borrows Labov’s insight that the form of narrative is linked to its interactional functions. Narrative research in psychology and other fields often cites …
Review Of Sali Tagliamonte, Making Waves: The Story Of Variationist Sociolinguistics, Barbara Johnstone
Dec 2015
Review Of Sali Tagliamonte, Making Waves: The Story Of Variationist Sociolinguistics, Barbara Johnstone
Barbara Johnstone
No abstract provided.
