From Barbara Johnstone’s:
“How to Speak Like a Pittsburgher: Exploring the Role of a Folk Dictionary in the Production of a Dialect”
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Comments on the background and previous work of the subject are talked about with specific references to Sam McCool’s Sam McCool’s New Pittsburghese: How to Speak like a Pittsburgher. Johnstone then states the thesis at the end of the paragraph, which is that she believes historical and analytical approach to understand any metalanguage such as Pittsburghese.
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She continues to bluntly state her stance on the subject and what approaches she will take in the paper to prove her point by referencing past work and how her historical approach will investigate dialects with time.
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She discusses McCool’s book and its transformation of original publication in the 80s, and how it was republished to reflect the culture with black and gold themes, and how it is often displayed in souvenir shop. She also mentions specific Pittsburghese words and the format of the book.
Separately, An example of the word “cahch” is presented and defined.
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She references a handout and makes examples of specific words found in the text by commenting on their monophthongal pronounciations. Also discussed is the fact that some speech patterns thought to be exclusively Pittsburghese can be found elsewhere in the country, but also mentions ones that are indeed unique to the Pittsburgh region.
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Participle choice compared to other English speakers are discussed. She also mentions that some “Pittsburghese” speech patterns sound similar in nature to how African American speech is perceived and gives a couple of vocabulary examples.
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Johnstone tries to clarify what Pittsburghese is from a linguistic perspective by classifying it as an “orthographic respresentation of casual speech.” Again it is closely compared to speech dialects of North and South Midland American speech, and Appalachian speech.
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She reminds the reader of the true metalinguistic aspect that is Pittsburghese, for it is “talk about talk” (Johnstone).
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The linguistic concept of Enregistration is defined and different factors that contribute to metalanguages are listed and include political and economic conditions, and social and discursive practices.
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RP, or Received Pronunciation is discussed as referred to researcher Asif Agha and talks about how this separation from the rest of the English language is a “socially recognized register” (Agha 231).
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Historical references to the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, past newspaper articles, and other publications are mentioned as sources of information for the source and origination of the dialect. Ethnic backgrounds of immigrants must be taken into account as well as the searching for formation of identity.
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The beginnings of enregisterment of Pittsburgese first appeared in papers throughout the 1950s and 60s, but were not included as part of the serious or real news, and were taken lightheartedly.
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Curiosity about Pittsburghese continued to grow throughout the 1970s and the first publication to call it so was published by Robert Parslow, who was a University of Pittsburgh dialectition.
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Gradually, the thought of Pittsburghese as a local language or dialect started to become legitimized and taken seriously.
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The growth of its legitimacy is further discussed, as well as the standardization of some words and phrases. Specifically used as an example is the word “yunz/yinz.”
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By the time McCool’s book was published it had already gained the reputation of a dialect by the Pittsburgh population, and even included an accepted alphabetized dictionary of terms.
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The publishing and social history of “How to Speak Like a Pittsburgher” is discussed as well as Parslow’s perceptions towards it, for it was very similar to his own.
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Because McCool’s book was so similar in appearance to Parslow’s, plagarism was suspected, and although they were structurally similar, the content differed and there was no copyright infringement nor was their plagarism.
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The acceptance and accuracy of the book was accepted, for the Pittsburghese T-shirts (an example of enregisterment) that became popular in the 1990s used many of the same terms quoted in the book.
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The Discussion section, Johnstone reiterates the fact that these books only recognize dialects, and that further research needs to be done on the process of sociolinguistic enregisterment in order to fully understand the concept.
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She claims that this process is based on history of a region, says that understanding it requires historiography, and closes by stating the importance of discourse analysis
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From Barbara Johnstone’s:
Representing American Speech
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Johnstone speaks of past research done regarding Pittsburghese as well as different methods of dialect research conducted about it. She speaks of the acceptance of the metalanguage and gives specific examples of words that are widely accepted as being “Pittsburghese” such as “babushka” and boilermaker.” She contrasts Sam McCool’s “How to Speak like a Pitsburgher” with the academic journal “American Speech” and the different approach to the dialect. (oddly enough this article was published in American Speech.”
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Popularity concepts and informal analysis is compared to the technical linguistic studies done in the past. She lists the typical questions that dialecticians ask subjects in their studies that deal with local communities and their speech.
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She discusses the contradictory nature of the fact that although McCool’s book was not thought to be academically sound, it is the foundation for many of the research done on the subject of Pittsburghese and was used as a reference during the transition phases of Pittsburghese being accepted into academia.
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Approaches for sociolinguistic research differ from case to case and are discussed however she makes it known that it is impossible to grasp every tiny detail of such languages. Also noted is the fact that even academic analysis should be taken as yet another analysis and not the ultimate word on the topic or language.
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The modern importance of local dialects is discussed. Locals of metalanguages (including those of Pittsburgh) have to make the personal and conscious decision to accept a new dialect and to accept it as an identity. The products marketed around Pittsburghese (magnets, bumper stickers, t-shirts etc.) are given as examples of this commitment to identity. The analysis of McCool’s book is then said to be a “concern” for the publication of American Speech.
At the end is a brief biography of Johnstone, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University of rhetoric and statistics.
The difference between the introduction and the lit review for each of the articles was that the introduction gave the reader an overall scope of the topic at hand, whereas the lit review referenced past work done on the subject very specifically. Additionally, the lit reviews commented on the validity of past research and papers to the current articles, as well as how the past lit review work was received at the time of original publication.
I found the the author tried to hook the readers interest, as I stated, by referencing past work on the subject. By doing this, the author is establishing relevance about their topic and is a great transition into what the subject of the paper is. The theses were also clearly stated and the research questions were made evident several times throughout the introduction.
“How to Speak like a Pittsburgher”
a) The objective was to inform and convince the reader of the importance of registration with sociolinguistic aspects of local dialects, specifically Pittsburghese, and the importance of history in the understanding of this process.
b) The significance deals with reevaluating what scholars thought previously about recognition of dialects by looking at past evidence and finding new meaning in their thoughts by creating different interpretations of them.
c) How has history and local enregisterment affected and created Pittsburghese throughout the 20th century?
d) The methods dealt with examining past work, specifically that of McCool’s, and analyzing how those concepts were interpreted by linguists.
e) Indeed many local perceptions were adopted from his observations and although it is not considered a scholarly document, its contents were the building blocks for much of what is considered Pittsburghese today.
f) It is recommended to delve even further into the past history of Pittsburgh’s linguistic practices.
“Representing American Speech”
a) The objective was to compare and contrast approaches of Pittsburghese from the past and present and question what is considered to be legitimate.
b) The significance deals with the original definitions of Pittsburghese and if they are at all relevant to current academics.
c) Were the original publications dealing with “Pittsburghese” legitimate enough to be considered scholarly and should the information within them be accounted for by modern standards”
d) The method simply dealt with comparing past and present publications and discussing American Speech’s opinion towards them.
e) American Speech is concerned with the “legitimacy” of past documents.
f) The principle of questioning past research is taken into account and it is encouraged for further research towards enregisterment on the subject to be conducted.
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BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION:
Johnstone, B. (2000). Representing American Speech. American Speech, 75(4), 390-393.
Barbara Johnstone. 2006. “How to Speak Like a Pittsburgher: Exploring the Role of a Folk Dictionary in the Production of a Dialect” Paper presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 16, Limerick, Ireland
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/barbara_johnstone/19
