3. PEDERSON’S NEW
LINGUISTIC ATLAS PROTOCOL
• Designed for Western States research
• Preserves acquisition of phonetic, lexical, and syntactic targets comparable to older
Linguistic Atlas surveys
• Reduces interview time from six or more hours to less than three
• Elicits about 20 minutes of conversational speech in an oral history format
• Twelve semantic categories with 30 questions each yield more than 400 target
forms
• Visit https://sites.google.com/view/usadialect to view the survey adapted for use in
Henderson, Nevada (see handout)
4. EXAMPLE PROMPT
What’s a yellow vegetable you pick up and eat with your
hands?
This prompt seeks:
• A phonetic token of the word ‘corn’
• Lexical variants like ‘corn on the cob’ or ‘roasting ears’
5. PROSPECTS FOR EMERGING VARIATION
RESEARCH IN THE WESTERN STATES
• Recent settlement history
• Potential access to recorded speech of founder
population
• Insular and enduring communities
• Oral history programs may pave the way to field research
6. ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT
Among the forces assumed to contribute to regional variation,
Raven I. McDavid, Jr., director of the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle and
South Atlantic States, explained that:
Any large or influential element in the early population of an
area can be expected to contribute materially to the speech of
that area, whether in pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.
(p. 483 in McDavid, Jr., Raven I. 1958. American English Dialects. In Nelson
Francis, The Structure of American Engish, 480-543, 580-85. New York: The
Ronald Press Company.)
7. ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT
Similarly, Salikoko Mufwene argues for a “Founder Principle” of
creole formation emphasizing the initial and sustained influence
of homesteading populations of non-standard English speakers
in regions which later became plantation land.
(Chapters 2-3 in Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The ecology of language
evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
8. ASSESSING THE FOUNDER EFFECT
How do we explain modern features that diverge from those
introduced by the founders?
• El Pasoans do not sound like the rest of Texans.
• Since El Paso was virtually emptied by the Civil War, 1880 marks a new
founding point for the burgeoning railroad nexus.
• 64% of El Paso was listed as “born in Texas” in the 1880 census.
• If founders are indeed influential, why shouldn’t we see more influence from
other regions of Texas?
Gaps in our knowledge of founder inputs complicate analysis.
9. OBSERVING THE FOUNDERS
The best opportunity to evaluate the contribution of
founder input to emerging regional variation is afforded by
communities where the founders are still living or have left
behind recorded speech and information about their
origins, perhaps in audio and video recorded oral histories.
10. OBSERVING THE FOUNDERS
Recorded oral histories have been used successfully by the
Origins of New Zealand English Project, which analyzes
recordings made in the 1940s by the Mobile Disc
Recording Unit of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service.
(Gordon, Elizabeth, et. al. 2004. New Zealand English: Its Origins and Evolution.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.)
11. BENEFITS OF ORAL HISTORIES
• Oral histories and historical societies can suggest prospective communities
for emerging variation research.
• Public access to full length online audio and video oral histories is increasing.
• The number of communities with oral history programs is growing.
• Oral histories can provide supplementary evidence or suggest target forms
to pursue.
• But time is of the essence!
12. A BATTLE-BORN PROSPECT
• Henderson, Nevada, began as a government installation for the production
of magnesium during WWII.
• The original townsite has avoided dilution from newcomers and retained
multiple generations over time.
• Henderson founders ranged from scientists and pilots to working class
patriots with large and growing families.
• After the war, around 5000 determined to remain and formed the city of
Henderson.
• Today Henderson supports a quarter of a million along the southern border
of Las Vegas.
14. FIELDWORK IN HENDERSON
• In 2015, I conducted three interviews with siblings who were children of founders
using Pederson’s modified Linguistic Atlas interview protocol.
• Interviews were recording with an H4n Zoom Handy Recorder in the homes of the
informants.
• An online video oral history with their mother may provide some comparable
evidence.
• I plan to gather evidence from at least four more families in the townsite who are
descended from the founders.
• I also conducted a full interview with a member of the Mormon community who
grew up in neighboring Boulder City, but provided leads to native Henderson
prospects.
15. LOCAL CULTURE IN A FEW WORDS
• “Locals” is a concept of residents distinguishing them from tourists.
• “Locals” in the “metro” [Las Vegas] who expect delays on the “beltway” [the
encompassing I-215] can still try their luck on the “surface streets”.
• “Surface streets” refer to the non-highway roads.
• Henderson takes offense when outsiders refer to them as “Hooterville”.
• But since “new Henderson” has many country clubs, they have been teased
as “Snooterville”.
• “Nevadans” come from the state of “Nevada”!
16. APPARENT TIME EVIDENCE
EVEN FROM SIBLINGS?
The father of the siblings hailed from Lebanon, Missouri.
The two siblings not born in Henderson who came as small children use the
form of Missouri reportedly used by their father in both casual and careful
speech.
The sibling born in Henderson uses the form commonly used by outsiders.
Could the baby sister serve as a link to the next generation?
17. CONSIDERATIONS FOR BEGINNING
FIELDWORK IN A NEW PLACE
• We fill a quota sample as we encounter willing participants who fit our stated
requirements, such as nativity and other socioeconomic parameters.
• If you don’t come from a community, it helps to network with community
organizations and leaders in order to identify and approach qualified
prospects.
• Maintaining and developing community relationships enables further
research.
18. RESPECT
Planning new survey research and conducting fieldwork
reminds us of the challenges overcome by linguistic
geographers and others who contributed much of their
lives to Linguistic Atlas research, whether in the field or at
the desk.
Thanks, Dr. Pederson.
