1. Local Orientation and Local-Sounding Speech in Pittsburgh:
Complicating the Picture
Scott F. Kiesling (University of Pittsburgh)
Jennifer Andrus, Neeta Bhasin, and Barbara Johnstone
(Carnegie Mellon University)
Overview “Sounds Local”
80 sociolinguistic interviews in Pittsburgh, PA are used to
explore the relationships between two phonological features
What is “Local Orientation?” /aw/-monophthongization sounds local to Pittsburghers.
Monophthongal /aw/ is mentioned far more often than any
and speakers’ “local orientation.” One of these features In addition to being assigned to a category in each other feature in lists of features of “Pittsburghese,” used
sounds local to Pittsburghers; the other does not. If speakers more in stylized imitations, and drawn on more in
of the customary sociolinguistic variables – age,
use features that sound local to them to index local descriptions of local identity. In a perception task 72% said
orientation, and if they do not use features that do not gender, neighborhood, and so on -- each speaker
that the guise with the monophthongal variant sounded
sound local for this purpose, then we should find a positive was assigned a “local orientation score” on the ba- more “like the way a Pittsburgher would say it.”
correlation between /aw/-monophthongization and local sis of the following categories of measures. The /l/-vocalization does not sound local to Pittsburghers.
orientation, but not between /l/-vocalization and local relevant information was elicited in the interview. Vocalized /l/ is almost never mentioned in lists of features
orientation. We also hypothesize that some of the of “Pittsburghese,” used in stylized imitations, or drawn on
differences in the usage of these features associated with other descriptions of local identity. In a perception task, only 3 of
sociodemographic variables can be explained in terms of local Demography: How much of the speaker’s life
32 respondents could hear a difference between the two
orientation in the case of /aw/-monophthongization, but not experience is local or tied to local institutions?
guises, and only 2 said that the guise with the vocalized
in the case of /l/-vocalization. (6 measures) variant sounded more “like the way a Pittsburgher would
“local variants”
say it.”
Lifestyle/Consumption: How local are the
Recent work on the distribution of geographically localized
variants explores how the use of “local” variants might be
choices they make about what to do with their
Local Identity or
time, what to buy, whether to follow local news
explained in terms of speakers’ orientations to the places and sports events? (at least 2 measures) Local Practice?
where such variants occur. In some of this work, local
variants are defined as variants occurring in a physically Our hypotheses were not categorically refuted, but neither
bounded geographical area. Johnstone (2004) suggests that Attitude: How do they say they feel about lo- were they confirmed. A summary of findings:
places are better seen as cultural/discursive constructs, arising cal people and places? (5 measures) For (aw), local orientation factors (LOFs) did not replace
out of repeated ways of experiencing and talking about demographic factors. Moreover, the LOFs that measured
physical spaces. Eckert (1996, 2004) shows how While it still needs refinement, this way of mea- lifestyle rather than attitude towards Pittsburgh were
sociolinguistic variation can be recruited into this process. those that predict (aw). This suggests that the role of
suring local identity has the advantage of com-
Phonological variants that come to point to and help to identity orientation is not as strong as we believed. In
construct place need not even be variants that are bining the traditional demographic approach to
other words, it’s not about Pittsburgh, it’s about choices
geographically bounded in a physical sense. Thus in order to identity with a sociological approach to identity
about how to live: (class-based) practices, not (identity-
identify the variants that can be used to index local based on social practice and one drawn from so- based) attitude.
orientation, we must do ethnographic, discourse analytic, cial-psychological research on language atti- Different LOFs did not have the same effect on (l-voc)
and perceptual work to find out which features in fact
tudes. and (aw). More factors were chosen for (aw) than (l-voc),
sound local to the speakers in question.
and the factors chosen for (aw) show stronger effects.
These results partially support our hypothesis that (l-voc)
would not correlate with LOFs, while (aw) would.
1
Low weight = Many LOFs did not pattern as expected for both
External Factors for (l­voc)
Non-Vocalized
more vocalization 0.9 variables. For (aw), “Attitude to Pittsburgh” favors the
[stIwrz]
Occupation 0.8 ‘nonlocal’ variant as attitude becomes more positive
Skilled 0.33 toward Pittsburgh.
0.7
Clerical 0.52 Local Orientation Factors
For (l-voc), “Location of college,” “consumption
Unskilled 0.54 Life Experience
0.6 practices,” “Leisure activities,” and “Attitude to
Professional 0.57 Location of college
0.5 Leisure activities Pittsburgh” all show a negative correlation between
SWPA Native Attitude to Pittsburgh ‘localness’ and vocalization.
0.4
Native 0.46 Attitude to being a
Pittsburgher
The local category that has the most effect for both
Non-native 0.82 0.3
Local Consumption variables is at the extreme non-local end of the scale, but
Vocalized
Neighborhood 0.2 this category does not have a uniform effect.
Lawrenceville 0.40 The neighborhood factor in (aw) is unexpected;
0.1
Forest Hills 0.50 Cranberry is the most suburban and non-Pittsburgh.
Cranberry 0.61 0
1 2 3 4 5 However, the raw percentages have it as the least
Less local Local Orientation More local vocalizing. LOFs could account for this discrepancy
Low weight = more monophthongization
1 Further
Questions
External Factors for (aw)
Neighborhood Education 0.9
Diphthong
Cranberry 0.44 BA 0.32 0.8
[da:nta:n]
Local Orientation Factors
Forest Hills 0.46 HS 0.46 Further analysis will consider the
Lawrenceville 0.58 HS or less 0.49 0.7 Life Experience possibility that the unexpected pat-
Post-BA 0.58 Location of college
0.6 terns are due to conflicting atti-
Year of Birth Some college 0.72 Location of Education
Before 1925 0.19 Work tudes among subgroups in the
0.5
1926-1945 0.30 Occupation
Leisure activities speech community. Younger
0.4 Attitude to Pittsburgh
speakers orient differently to (aw)
Monophthong
1946-1965 0.54 Unskilled 0.20 Attitude to Neighborhood
1965-1985 0.71 Clerical 0.42 0.3 Being a Pittsburgher than older speakers; analyses of
After 1985 0.82 Skilled 0.58 Identify as Pittsburgher these groups separately might
Professional 0.64 0.2 Consumption
show different attitude patterns.
0.1 We will also consider to what ex-
SWPA Native
Native 0.46 0 tent the questions asked to mea-
1 2 3 4 5
Non-native 0.84 sure LO (and the coding proce-
Less local Local Orientation More local dure) are valid measures.