Collaborative Research: Language Change, Dialect Awareness, and Place Identity in Pittsburgh

在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，卡内基梅隆大学的芭芭拉·约翰斯通教授和匹兹堡大学的斯科特·f·基斯林教授将研究宾夕法尼亚州西部的方言及其在当地生活中的作用。该地区与其他一些方言地区的区别在于，它与当地被称为“匹兹堡语”的地区身份密切相关，这些特征经常出现在方言词典、明信片和t恤上。匹兹堡演讲与社会项目（PSSP）试图通过探索方言意识产生和传播的社会条件，以及这种意识的语言后果，来理解地方认同和方言变化路径之间的关系。据推测，匹兹堡人认为是“真正的”匹兹堡人的方言特征与那些匹兹堡人不用来象征当地身份的方言特征不同。美国国家科学基金会的资金将用于社会语言学/民族志社区研究系列中的第三个，该研究记录了匹兹堡地区三个截然不同的社区的当地语言、方言意识和地方身份，并用于社区实践研究，包括密集的参与者观察、记录、回放和感知过程。作为首个针对跨阿巴拉契亚东北地区城市语音的大规模研究，该项目将对美国语音的区域和社会差异研究做出重要贡献。该项目的主要理论成果将是更深入地了解对地区和社会方言的认识产生和传播的过程，以及这种认识在语言变化中的作用。由于语言对匹兹堡的地方身份如此重要，当地的档案工作者、学者、设计师和其他人都被招募进来，试图将当地语言合法化，使其成为当地遗产和当地文化独特性的一个公认方面。这项工作包括将采访数据存档，用于历史保护和奖学金，为社区组织举办讲习班和讲座，为公众设计和发布网站，以及咨询教育工作者和媒体。

With National Science Foundation support, Professors Barbara Johnstone of Carnegie Mellon University and Scott F. Kiesling of the University of Pittsburgh will study the dialect of western Pennsylvania and the roles it plays in local life. The region is differentiated from some other dialect areas in its close association of regional identity with what is locally known as "Pittsburghese," features of which appear frequently in vernacular dictionaries and on postcards and t-shirts. The Pittsburgh Speech and Society Project (PSSP) seeks to understand the relationship between local identity and the path of change in the dialect by exploring the social conditions under which dialect awareness arises and spreads, and the linguistic consequences of that awareness. It is hypothesized that dialect features that Pittsburghers identify with being a "true" Pittsburgher will pattern differently from those that Pittsburghers do not use to symbolize local identity. NSF-funding will be used for the third in a series of sociolinguistic/ethnographic neighborhood studies documenting local speech, dialect awareness, and place identity in three contrasting Pittsburgh-area neighborhoods, and for a community-of-practice study involving intensive participant observation, recording, and playback and perception procedures. As the first large-scale study of urban speech in the trans-Appalachiannortheast to focus on pronunciation as well as words and structures, thisproject will make an important contribution to the study of regional andsocial variation in American speech. The primary theoretical outcome of theproject will be a deeper understanding of the processes by which awarenessof regional and social dialects arises and spreads, and of the roles of suchawareness in language change. Because language is so important toPittsburgh's local identity, local archivists, scholars, designers, andothers have been recruited in the attempt to legitimize local speech as arecognized aspect of local heritage and local cultural distinctiveness. Thiswork includes the archiving of interview data for historic preservation andscholarship, workshops and lectures for community organizations, the designand publication of a website for the general public, and consultation witheducators and media outlets.