NEW DIALECT RESEARCH IN THE WESTERN STATES:

LEE PEDERSON’S LEGACY OF OPPORTUNITYAnne Marie Hamilton-Brehm, Ph.D

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

PEDERSON’S NEWLINGUISTIC ATLAS PROTOCOL

• Designed for Western States research• Preserves acquisition of phonetic, lexical, and syntactic targets

comparable to older Linguistic Atlas surveys• Reduces interview time from six or more hours to less than three• Elicits about 20 minutes of conversational speech in an oral history

format• Twelve semantic categories with 30 questions each yield more than 400

target forms

• Visit https://sites.google.com/view/usadialect to view the survey adapted for use in Henderson, Nevada (see handout)

EXAMPLE PROMPTWhat’s a yellow vegetable you pick up and eat with your hands?

This prompt seeks:

• A phonetic token of the word ‘corn’• Lexical variants like ‘corn on the cob’ or ‘roasting ears’

PROSPECTS FOR EMERGING VARIATION RESEARCH IN THE WESTERN STATES

• Recent settlement history• Potential access to recorded speech of founder population• Insular and enduring communities•Oral history programs may pave the way to field research

ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT

Among the forces assumed to contribute to regional variation,Raven I. McDavid, Jr., director of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and South Atlantic States, explained that:

Any large or influential element in the early population of an area can be expected to contribute materially to the speech of that area, whether in pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.(p. 483 in McDavid, Jr., Raven I. 1958. American English Dialects. In Nelson Francis, The Structure of American Engish, 480-543, 580-85. New York: The Ronald Press Company.)

ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT

Similarly, Salikoko Mufwene argues for a “Founder Principle” of creole formation emphasizing the initial and sustained influence of homesteading populations of non-standard English speakers in regions which later became plantation land.

(Chapters 2-3 in Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)

ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT

How do we explain modern features that diverge from those introduced by the founders?• El Pasoans do not sound like the rest of Texans.• Since El Paso was virtually emptied by the Civil War, 1880 marks a

new founding point for the burgeoning railroad nexus.• 64% of El Paso was listed as “born in Texas” in the 1880 census.• If founders are indeed influential, why shouldn’t we see more

influence from other regions of Texas?Gaps in our knowledge of founder inputs complicate analysis.

OBSERVING THE FOUNDERS

The best opportunity to evaluate the contribution of founder input to emerging regional variation is afforded by communities where the founders are still living or have left behind recorded speech and information about their origins, perhaps in audio and video recorded oral histories.

OBSERVING THE FOUNDERSRecorded oral histories have been used successfully by the Origins of New Zealand English Project, which analyzes recordings made in the 1940s by the Mobile Disc Recording Unit of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service.

(Gordon, Elizabeth, et. al. 2004. New Zealand English: Its Origins and Evolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.)

BENEFITS OF ORAL HISTORIES• Oral histories and historical societies can suggest prospective communities

for emerging variation research.

• Public access to full length online audio and video oral histories is increasing.

• The number of communities with oral history programs is growing.

• Oral histories can provide supplementary evidence or suggest target forms to pursue.

• But time is of the essence!

A BATTLE-BORN PROSPECT• Henderson, Nevada, began as a government installation for the

production of magnesium during WWII.• The original townsite has avoided dilution from newcomers and

retained multiple generations over time.• Henderson founders ranged from scientists and pilots to working

class patriots with large and growing families. • After the war, around 5000 determined to remain and formed the

city of Henderson.• Today Henderson supports a quarter of a million along the southern

border of Las Vegas.

MAGNESIUM MAGGIE:LORETTA ROACH

FIELDWORK IN HENDERSON• In 2015, I conducted three interviews with siblings who were children of

founders using Pederson’s modified Linguistic Atlas interview protocol.• Interviews were recording with an H4n Zoom Handy Recorder in the

homes of the informants.• An online video oral history with their mother may provide some

comparable evidence.• I plan to gather evidence from at least four more families in the townsite

who are descended from the founders.• I also conducted a full interview with a member of the Mormon

community who grew up in neighboring Boulder City, but provided leads to native Henderson prospects.

LOCAL CULTURE IN A FEW WORDS

• “Locals” is a concept of residents distinguishing them from tourists.• “Locals” in the “metro” [Las Vegas] who expect delays on the

“beltway” [the encompassing I-215] can still try their luck on the “surface streets”. • “Surface streets” refer to the non-highway roads.• Henderson takes offense when outsiders refer to them as

“Hooterville”.• But since “new Henderson” has many country clubs, they have

been teased as “Snooterville”.• “Nevadans” come from the state of “Nevada”!

APPARENT TIME EVIDENCEEVEN FROM SIBLINGS?

The father of the siblings hailed from Lebanon, Missouri.

The two siblings not born in Henderson who came as small children use the form of Missouri reportedly used by their father in both casual and careful speech.

The sibling born in Henderson uses the form commonly used by outsiders.

Could the baby sister serve as a link to the next generation?

CONSIDERATIONS FOR BEGINNING FIELDWORK IN A

NEW PLACE• We fill a quota sample as we encounter willing participants who fit

our stated requirements, such as nativity and other socioeconomic parameters.

• If you don’t come from a community, it helps to network with community organizations and leaders in order to identify and approach qualified prospects.

• Maintaining and developing community relationships enables further research.

RESPECTPlanning new survey research and conducting fieldwork reminds us of the challenges overcome by linguistic geographers and others who contributed much of their lives to Linguistic Atlas research, whether in the field or at the desk.

Thanks, Dr. Pederson.