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有很强的相关性。一些方法基于这样的假设，即职业效应来自不同职业的演讲者的不同社会需求和目标。然而，这一观点从未在一个工作场所内使用大规模的定量数据进行过调查。目前的研究是对一家公司内各种职业的说话者使用六个南方元音的分析。目前的研究将解决：1）所需的工作技能是否与南方特征相关2）个人在工作中操纵的特征与休闲环境3）工作场所内的语言歧视经历。这项工作调查使用南方功能的工人在一个单一的技术公司，提供了一个更细致入微的职业和语言特征之间的关系。个人可以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分类到总体上看到的群体中的作用。随着从休闲，工作和面试设置的文体数据的增加，这项研究可以更准确地找出南方功能扬声器避免工作场所的情况。最后，发言者讲述了在工作场所遭受语言歧视的经历，这将突出南方人在工作中可能面临的社会后果。这项研究将进一步了解语言歧视是如何在工作场所运作的，它将具体确定南方元音转换的哪些功能受到最大程度的耻辱。语言歧视的具体经历将有助于人们认识到语言在促进潜意识歧视做法方面的重要性，从而使公共政策能够直接解决这些问题。直接证据表明使用带有污名化的方言特征会产生负面的社会后果，这将为使用非标准方言的工人提供法律的保护基础。

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.