Description
Book SynopsisPresents informative and entertaining essays on the accents, dialects, and speech patterns particular to Alabama. Thomas Nunnally's fascinating volume presents essays by linguists who examine with affection and curiosity the speech varieties occurring both past and present across Alabama.
Trade ReviewWhile there is ample documentation of language variation on a state and local level [in Alabama], the authors attempt to do more—to understand and to explicate the role of language in community life. For example, Allbritten probes the way that the production of vowels may project identity, Hasty examines attitudes of linguistic insecurity and self-deprecation that are sometimes associated with local and state dialect norms, and Johnson and Nunnally examine the socioeducational and sociopsychological dimensions of code-switching for African Americans sometimes caught between local and external, mainstream norms. So we see an effort to understand the reasons that we use language as we do—to situate ourselves socially, to project our identities to others, and to use language variation in the presentation of ourselves as we negotiate our varying communities of practice."" - From the foreword by Walt Wolfram
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword Walt Wolfram
- Editor’s Preface, Note to Linguists, and Acknowledgments Thomas E. Nunnally
- 1. Exploring Language in Alabama Thomas E. Nunnally
- 2. Multilingual Alabama Michael D. Picone
- 3. Southern American English in Alabama Catherine Evans Davies
- 4. Extreme North Alabama: Cultural Collisions and Linguistic Fallout Thomas E. Nunnally and Guy Bailey
- 5. Just What Is the Southern Drawl? Crawford Feagin
- 6. The Heart of Dixie Is in Their Vowels: The Relationship between Culture and Language in Huntsville, Alabama Rachael Allbritten
- 7. The Monophthongization of [a?] in Elba and the Environs: A Community Study Anna Head Spence
- 8. To [a:] or Not to [a:] on the Gulf Coast of Alabama Jocelyn Doxsey
- 9. “They Sound Better Than We Do”: Language Attitudes in Alabama J. Daniel Hasty
- 10. Code-Switching Between African American and Standard English: The Rules, the Roles, and the Rub Kimberly Johnson with Thomas E. Nunnally
- 11. College Writers as Alabama Storytellers: Cultural Effects on Academic Writing Charlotte Brammer
- 12. Tsalagi Language Revitalization and the Echota Cherokee Robin Sabino
- Afterword: Some Thoughts about Ways Ahead Michael B. Montgomery
- Appendix A. The Sounds of English and Southern English
- Appendix B. A Glossary of Select Linguistic Terms
- Appendix C. Web Sources for Further Study
- References
- List of Contributors
- Index
