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"I never thought I had an accent until the hurricane": Sociolinguistic Variation in Post-Katrina Greater New Orleans

Carmichael, Katie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397673731

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Linguistics.
In the latter half of the twentieth century, the White working class vernacular in Greater New Orleans (GNO) has lost ground to extralocal linguistic pressures. Locally salient phonetic features such as raised BOUGHT, r-lessness, and a split short-a system are now rarely heard within city limits. In Upper St. Bernard Parish, and the town of Chalmette in particular, these linguistic features have persisted longer than elsewhere in GNO. However, the fate of this stigmatized variety is unclear following the largescale displacement in this region, caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While some residents of St. Bernard have returned to rebuild, others have relocated to parts of GNO where these local features are much less common, such as the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain, thereby placing an all-too-literal bridge between relocators' past in Chalmette, and their present lives on the Northshore. This study provides an updated account of local New Orleans linguistic features while contributing to our understanding of the linguistic effects of migration and displacement by examining sociolinguistic variation in the speech of St. Bernardian returners and relocators. Moreover, I attempt to extrapolate the results of this situation to make overall conclusions about the role of place identity in sociolinguistic variation. To accomplish these goals, I examined sociolinguistic variation from three speech tasks--interview speech, reading passage, and word list data--for a sample of 57 speakers, balanced across age, gender, and post-Katrina location status (returner, relocator). I focused on three locally salient variables--(oh), (r), and (æ)--as well as a previously undescribed feature, the phonetically conditioned raising and fronting of /aw/ preceding voiceless consonants. I examined these variables acoustically and statistically in order to determine the patterning of linguistic variation according to the social variables of interest: age, gender, social class, post-Katrina location status (returner or relocator), and extra-Chalmatian orientation (calculated by a combination of factors including residential history and orientation to St. Bernard). I also informed my interpretation of these analyses with metalinguistic commentary from participants as well as insights stemming from 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork. The resulting analysis revealed that none of the variables patterned systematically with post-Katrina location status. That is--whether an individual moved away or returned following the storm did not predict the variation. However, r-lessness and short-a system type varied according to extra-Chalmatian orientation, suggesting that to understand these data requires a more complex analysis of participants' relationships with the places in question. I propose in my analysis that part of the relationship between sociolinguistic variation and place identity centers on awareness of the link between a linguistic feature and a given place. Overall, the data indicate a change in progress away from using traditional locally salient features such as raised BOUGHT, r-lessness, and a split short-a system, however the rise of newer local features like (aw) indicate that the "new normal" in post-Katrina Greater New Orleans includes a "new local" in terms of dialect.
Kathryn Campbell-Kibler (Advisor)
Galey Modan (Committee Member)
Donald Winford (Committee Member)
Cynthia Clopper (Committee Member)
425 p.
Linguistics
Linguistics; Sociolinguistic variation; New Orleans; regional dialects; identity, place; language; Louisiana, Chalmette; St Bernard Parish; Hurricane Katrina

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Carmichael, K. (2014). "I never thought I had an accent until the hurricane": Sociolinguistic Variation in Post-Katrina Greater New Orleans [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397673731

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Carmichael, Katie. "I never thought I had an accent until the hurricane": Sociolinguistic Variation in Post-Katrina Greater New Orleans. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397673731.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Carmichael, Katie. ""I never thought I had an accent until the hurricane": Sociolinguistic Variation in Post-Katrina Greater New Orleans." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1397673731

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1397673731
882
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.