Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Firm-Level Analysis of the Occupational Effects on Southern U.S. English

传统上，社会语言学家发现职业和语言变量之间存在很强的相关性。一些方法基于这样的假设，即职业效应产生于说话者在不同职业中的不同社会需求和目标。然而，这一观点从未在单一工作场所内使用大规模的量化数据进行过调查。目前的研究是对一家公司内不同职业的说话者使用六个南方元音的情况进行分析。目前的研究将解决：1)所需的工作技能是否与南方人的特征相关；2)个人在工作中操纵哪些特征，而不是在休闲环境中；3)工作场所内的语言歧视经历。这项研究调查了在一家科技公司工作的员工使用南方特征的情况，为职业和语言特征之间的关系提供了一幅更微妙的图景。个人可能会根据不同的工作技能显示语言分组，说明工作场所在将个人归类到总体上所见的群体中的作用。加上休闲、工作和面试环境中的文体数据，这项研究可以更准确地确定说南方话的人在工作场合避免使用哪些南方特色的语言。最后，演讲者讲述了工作场所中语言歧视的经历，这将突出南方演讲者在工作中可能面临的社会后果。这项研究将进一步加深我们对语言歧视在工作场所中如何运作的理解，它将具体确定哪些南方元音转换的特征受到最大程度的污名。语言歧视的具体经验将有助于提高人们对语言在促进潜意识歧视做法方面的重要性的认识，从而使公共政策能够直接处理这些问题。将使用污名化方言特征与负面社会后果联系在一起的直接证据将为使用非标准方言的工人提供法律保护的基础。

Sociolinguists have traditionally found strong correlations between occupation and linguistic variables. Some approaches rest on the assumption that occupational effects arise from the differential social needs and goals that speakers have in different occupations. However, this perspective has never been investigated using large-scale, quantitative data within a single workplace. The current study is an analysis of the use of six Southern vowels by speakers in a range of occupations within a single firm. The current study will address: 1) whether required job skills correlate with Southern features 2) which features individuals manipulate on the job versus in casual settings 3) experiences of linguistic discrimination within the workplace. This work investigates the use of Southern features among workers at a single technology firm, providing a more nuanced picture of the relationship between occupation and linguistic features. Individuals may show linguistic grouping based on different job skills illustrating the role of the workplace in sorting individuals into the groups seen in the aggregate. With the addition of stylistic data from casual, work, and interview settings, this study can more accurately pinpoint which Southern features speakers avoid for workplace situations. Lastly, speakers' recounting of experiences of linguistic discrimination within the workplace will highlight the social consequences that Southern speakers may face on the job. This study will further our understanding of how linguistic discrimination operates within the workplace, and it will specifically identify which features of the Southern Vowel Shift receive the greatest degree of stigma. The specific experiences of linguistic discrimination will help to bring awareness to the importance of language in promoting subconscious discriminatory practices, allowing for public policy that directly addresses these issues. Direct evidence tying the use of stigmatized dialect features with negative social outcomes will provide the foundation for legal protections for workers who speak with non-standard dialects.