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

在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所扮演的角色。该地区与其他一些方言地区的不同之处在于，该地区与当地被称为匹兹堡话的地区认同密切相关，其特征经常出现在白话词典、明信片和t恤上。匹兹堡演讲和社会项目(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当地身份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将与匹兹堡人不用来象征当地身份的方言模式不同。NSF的资金将用于一系列社会语言学/人种学社区研究的第三项，该研究记录了匹兹堡地区三个不同社区的当地言语、方言意识和地方认同，以及一项涉及密集参与者观察、录音、回放和感知过程的实践社区研究。作为横跨阿巴拉契亚东南部地区第一个以发音、词汇和结构为重点的大规模城市言语研究，该项目将为研究美国言语的区域和社会变异做出重要贡献。该项目的主要理论成果将是更深入地理解地区和社会方言意识产生和传播的过程，以及这种意识在语言变化中的作用。由于语言对匹兹堡的地方身份非常重要，当地的档案管理员、学者、设计师和其他人被招募，试图将当地语言合法化，将其视为当地遗产和地方文化独特性的公认方面。这项工作包括将历史保护和学术采访数据存档，为社区组织举办讲习班和讲座，为公众设计和出版一个网站，并与教育工作者和媒体进行协商。

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.