Barbara Johnstone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199945689
- eISBN:
- 9780199369836
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This book explores the history of Pittsburghese, the local dialect of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area as it is imagined and used by Pittsburghers. Sociolinguist Barbara Johnstone asks what happened ...
More
This book explores the history of Pittsburghese, the local dialect of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area as it is imagined and used by Pittsburghers. Sociolinguist Barbara Johnstone asks what happened during the second half of the 20th century to reshape a largely unnoticed way of speaking in the southwestern Pennsylvania region into a highly visible urban “dialect” called Pittsburghese, linked to local identity so strongly that Pittsburghese is alluded to almost every time people talk about what Pittsburgh is like or what it means to be a Pittsburgher. Treating Pittsburghese as a cultural product of talk, writing, and other forms of social practice, Johnstone shows how non-standard pronunciations, words, and bits of grammar used in the Pittsburgh area were taken up, over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, into a repertoire of words and phrases and a vocal style that became one of the most resonant symbols of local identity. She describes the constellation of linguistic, historical, and ideological factors that came together to make Pittsburghers aware that there was a distinctive way of speaking in the area and to encourage them to circulate ideas and attitudes about this way of speaking in conversations and stories, in the newspaper, on TV, and on the internet, on t-shirts and in talking dolls, and by performing Pittsburghese on the radio and in everyday moments. To understand this process, the book draws on and adapts Peircian semiotic theory. Written in an accessible, non-technical style, this book will interest Pittsburghers and language scholars alike.Less
This book explores the history of Pittsburghese, the local dialect of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area as it is imagined and used by Pittsburghers. Sociolinguist Barbara Johnstone asks what happened during the second half of the 20th century to reshape a largely unnoticed way of speaking in the southwestern Pennsylvania region into a highly visible urban “dialect” called Pittsburghese, linked to local identity so strongly that Pittsburghese is alluded to almost every time people talk about what Pittsburgh is like or what it means to be a Pittsburgher. Treating Pittsburghese as a cultural product of talk, writing, and other forms of social practice, Johnstone shows how non-standard pronunciations, words, and bits of grammar used in the Pittsburgh area were taken up, over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries, into a repertoire of words and phrases and a vocal style that became one of the most resonant symbols of local identity. She describes the constellation of linguistic, historical, and ideological factors that came together to make Pittsburghers aware that there was a distinctive way of speaking in the area and to encourage them to circulate ideas and attitudes about this way of speaking in conversations and stories, in the newspaper, on TV, and on the internet, on t-shirts and in talking dolls, and by performing Pittsburghese on the radio and in everyday moments. To understand this process, the book draws on and adapts Peircian semiotic theory. Written in an accessible, non-technical style, this book will interest Pittsburghers and language scholars alike.
Barbara Johnstone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199945689
- eISBN:
- 9780199369836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945689.003.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter begins by introducing the study and situating it in the scholarly literature on sociolinguistic variation, identity, and place. An essential pre-condition for the development of ...
More
This chapter begins by introducing the study and situating it in the scholarly literature on sociolinguistic variation, identity, and place. An essential pre-condition for the development of Pittsburghese was the existence in southwestern Pennsylvania of phonological and morphosyntactic forms that differed from those used elsewhere. The chapter thus traces the history of English in the Pittsburgh area, starting with the Scotch-Irish immigrants who formed the dominant group of early English-speaking settlers. Johnstone describes the pronunciations, words, grammatical patterns, and ways of speaking that linguists and dialectologists have recorded and described in southwestern Pennsylvania. Then the chapter turns to a descriptive overview of Pittsburghese, local speech as it is represented in a folk dictionary from the 1980s and in a corpus of print materials from twenty years later.Less
This chapter begins by introducing the study and situating it in the scholarly literature on sociolinguistic variation, identity, and place. An essential pre-condition for the development of Pittsburghese was the existence in southwestern Pennsylvania of phonological and morphosyntactic forms that differed from those used elsewhere. The chapter thus traces the history of English in the Pittsburgh area, starting with the Scotch-Irish immigrants who formed the dominant group of early English-speaking settlers. Johnstone describes the pronunciations, words, grammatical patterns, and ways of speaking that linguists and dialectologists have recorded and described in southwestern Pennsylvania. Then the chapter turns to a descriptive overview of Pittsburghese, local speech as it is represented in a folk dictionary from the 1980s and in a corpus of print materials from twenty years later.
Barbara Johnstone
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199945689
- eISBN:
- 9780199369836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945689.003.0002
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter lays the theoretical groundwork needed to answer the questions posed in chapter 1: What is the relationship between Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese? How does Pittsburgh speech, a set ...
More
This chapter lays the theoretical groundwork needed to answer the questions posed in chapter 1: What is the relationship between Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese? How does Pittsburgh speech, a set of phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic features that, according to linguists, can each be heard in the Pittsburgh area but in most cases also elsewhere, feed into Pittsburghese, a shifting set of words and sentences, generated mainly by Pittsburghers, used to illustrate how Pittsburghers are taken to talk? And how does Pittsburghese feed into Pittsburgh speech, if it does? The chapter begins by exploring what we mean when we talk about “dialects.” It then introduces the concept of “place” that we need in order to see how Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese have come to be linked to the city of Pittsburgh. Finally, the chapter turns to meaning, asking how words and other signs are linked to objects, ideas, and identities.Less
This chapter lays the theoretical groundwork needed to answer the questions posed in chapter 1: What is the relationship between Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese? How does Pittsburgh speech, a set of phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic features that, according to linguists, can each be heard in the Pittsburgh area but in most cases also elsewhere, feed into Pittsburghese, a shifting set of words and sentences, generated mainly by Pittsburghers, used to illustrate how Pittsburghers are taken to talk? And how does Pittsburghese feed into Pittsburgh speech, if it does? The chapter begins by exploring what we mean when we talk about “dialects.” It then introduces the concept of “place” that we need in order to see how Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese have come to be linked to the city of Pittsburgh. Finally, the chapter turns to meaning, asking how words and other signs are linked to objects, ideas, and identities.
Elspeth Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199367221
- eISBN:
- 9780199367245
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199367221.003.0008
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
This chapter examines the alternative embedded passive (AEP), a feature of varieties such as “Pittsburghese,” in which a past participle directly follows need, want, or like, as in “The cat needs ...
More
This chapter examines the alternative embedded passive (AEP), a feature of varieties such as “Pittsburghese,” in which a past participle directly follows need, want, or like, as in “The cat needs fed.” Differences from the corresponding Standard English form (e.g., “The cat needs to be fed”) indicate the AEP does not arise from phonological ellipsis of to be, as is often assumed. An implicational hierarchy of use with the three possible matrix verbs, along with their varying acceptability as Control predicates, suggests the AEP is a Raising construction. Moreover, several diagnostics show the embedded participle is verbal rather than adjectival. In essence, the AEP represents a syntactically distinct Restructuring configuration, consisting of a Raising verb selecting for a reduced nonfinite complement.Less
This chapter examines the alternative embedded passive (AEP), a feature of varieties such as “Pittsburghese,” in which a past participle directly follows need, want, or like, as in “The cat needs fed.” Differences from the corresponding Standard English form (e.g., “The cat needs to be fed”) indicate the AEP does not arise from phonological ellipsis of to be, as is often assumed. An implicational hierarchy of use with the three possible matrix verbs, along with their varying acceptability as Control predicates, suggests the AEP is a Raising construction. Moreover, several diagnostics show the embedded participle is verbal rather than adjectival. In essence, the AEP represents a syntactically distinct Restructuring configuration, consisting of a Raising verb selecting for a reduced nonfinite complement.
