| Appalachian English (AppE) is a relic dialect, until recently considered to be resistant to change due to the relative isolation of its speakers. AppE may have become an endangered dialect, as have other insular dialects spoken on Ocracoke and Smith Islands, and the Sea Islands. The purpose of this investigation was to answer two research questions: (1) Is there a significant difference in the production of the eight vowels among speakers who are members of G1 (ages 70 to 90), G2 (ages 44 to 55), and G3 (ages 22 to 32) during conversation; and (2) is there a significant difference among speakers of AppE who are members of three cohorts in the degree to which they style-shift as the speech task becomes progressively more formal?;Ten families of three generations of native speakers of AppE from a remote community of East Tennessee participated. Each participant performed five tasks: (1) "breathless narrative;" (2) monitored conversation; (3) reading task; (4) sentence-completion task; and (5) minimal pairs word task, to determine the amount of AppE present and the degree of style-shifting toward Southern American English (SAE), after Labov (1981).;For question one, a significant two-way interaction was found between generation and vowel (p < .05). Significant differences were found between G1 and G2 for five vowels, and between G1 and G3 for three vowels, but none between G2 and G3. For question two, a significant three-way interaction was found among generation, condition, and vowel (p < .05). Pairwise comparisons between tasks showed the following significant differences in the direction of SAE: (1) for G1, 11 pairs of tasks among four vowels; (2) for G2, four pairs of tasks among three vowels; and (3) for G3, 11 pairs of tasks among three vowels. The style-shifting differences toward SAE were statistically significant (p < .05) for G1, but not for G2 and G3.;The findings suggested that change in AppE in this community was detected, indicating that a shift toward the SAE is in progress. There is a need for this research to continue as the decline in AppE is expected to continue, if not accelerate. |
