Doctoral Dissertation Research: Variation and marginalization in rural California: What it means to be NorCal Country

加州经常被描绘成自由主义、城市化和富裕的阳光之地，但该州大部分地区是保守的、农村的和贫穷的。在加州的农村社区中有一种强烈的“乡村”精神，这种精神在淘金热、大萧条和二战后木材繁荣期间受到南部和中西部牧场主、农民和木材砍伐者的移民的支持。这些劳工还把方言特征带到了加州的乡村地区，这与加州的国际形象相冲突。由于语言变异是人们用来表达和体现意识形态的一种工具，加州沿海城市的方言被认为是城市轻松和乐趣的标志，而这些南部和中西部的特征则唤起了所有“乡村”的东西。加州农村地区（以及其他地方的农村社区）的持续边缘化似乎将城乡之间在意识形态和言论上的差异提升为一种高度紧张的、超地方的对立;城市和乡村的人们根据自己的“真正的美国”价值观来竞争塑造加州和乡村。因此，在佩内洛普·埃克特和约翰·里克福德博士的指导下，凯瑟琳·吉恩伯格的论文旨在研究北方加州的一个农村社区：Trinity县如何在文体上使用“乡村”方言特征。不仅研究谁使用这些国家特征，而且研究人们如何以及何时使用它们，将为了解语言、生活方式和意识形态之间的关系提供一个窗口。该分析还旨在揭示地方社会分化如何与更大的国家分化联系起来。Geenberg将在Trinity县生活三个月，完成一项民族志，包括对当地居民的60-100次采访。本论文将创建一个公开的语料库采访农村，白色和美洲土著加州人，这将填补了需要编目方言在西方。但Geenberg也希望这些数据能提高人们对美国农村边缘化的认识，并帮助她和其他人更好地理解人们的政治是如何从日常经历中产生的。

California is often portrayed as a sunny land of liberalism, urbanity, and opulence, but much of the state is conservative, rural, and poor. There is a strong "country" ethos in California's rural communities that has been bolstered by the in-migration of Southern and Midwestern ranchers, farmers, and timber-fallers during the Gold Rush, Great Depression, and post-WWII timber boom. These laborers also introduced dialect features to rural California that conflict with the state's (inter)national image. Since language variation is one tool people use to express and embody ideology, the dialect of California's coastal cities is heard as iconic of urban ease and fun, while these Southern and Midwestern features evoke all things "country". The continuing marginalization of rural California (and rural communities everywhere) seems to elevate rural-urban differences in ideology and speech into a highly charged, supralocal opposition; city and country people compete to shape California and the country according to their own "authentically American" values. Thus, under the direction of Drs. Penelope Eckert and John Rickford, Katherine Geenberg's dissertation aims to study how "country" dialect features are used stylistically in one rural Northern California community: Trinity County. Studying not only who uses these country features, but how and when people use them, will provide a window into the relation between language, lifestyle, and ideology. The analysis also aims to uncover how local social divisions connect to larger, national divisions. Geenberg will live in Trinity County for three months to complete an ethnography, including 60-100 interviews with a diverse sample of local residents. The dissertation will create a publicly-available corpus of interviews with rural, white and Native American Californians, which will fill a need for cataloguing dialects in the West. But Geenberg also hopes these data will raise awareness about the marginalization of American rurality, and help her and others better understand how people's politics arise from everyday experiences.