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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures RELIGIOUS IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE SHIFT AMONG AMISH- MENNONITES IN KISHACOQUILLAS VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA A Dissertation in German by Joshua R. Brown 2011 Joshua R. Brown Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2011 The dissertation of Joshua R. Brown was reviewed and approved* by the following: B. Richard Page Associate Professor of German and Linguistics Head of the Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Carrie N. Jackson Associate Professor of German and Linguistics Michael T. Putnam Assistant Professor of German and Linguistics John M. Lipski Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Spanish and Linguistics *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT This dissertation provides an analysis of religious identity and language behavior in an Anabaptist settlement in central Pennsylvania. Kishacoquillas “Big” Valley, Pennsylvania is home to a variety of Anabaptist congregations ranging from conservative Old Order Amish to progressive Mennonites. Uniquely, each of these congregations traces its lineage to a shared Amish beginning in the late eighteenth century. Due to the geographic location within a narrow and level valley, congregations began to construct ethnoreligious identities, which not only defined themselves, but separated them from other congregations. As a result, differing interpretations of the traditional Anabaptist tenet of “separation from the world” emerged. Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, a group wishing to pursue more progressive changes chose to adopt meetinghouses for worship and less conservative hair and dress styles. They soon adopted a hyphenated religious identity as Amish-Mennonites – binding them to their Amish roots, but pronouncing their more progressive Mennonite aspirations. By the 1930s, these congregations ceased using Pennsylvania Dutch for the in-group and archaic German for worship. Today they identify only as Mennonites and Pennsylvania Dutch ceases to be a marker for their new religious – and less exclusive or sectarian – identity. A second group, similarly arising from Amish origins in 1911, currently identifies as Amish-Mennonite. This group has adopted similar religious goals as the first group, especially Sunday school, mission work, and evangelism. They iv are currently undergoing language shift with only a thirty-minute German- language hymn sing in the more conservative of the two congregations remaining. By relying on an oral history interview project, participant observation, and sociohistorical sources, this dissertation examines the changing ethnoreligious identities of the two groups. Employing Le Page and Tabouret- Keller‟s (1985) early assertions that language acts are acts of identity, the language behavior of each group is analyzed as part of their changing expressions of religious identity. Further, the religious identities of residents of Big Valley are viewed from a poststructural perspective: their identities are both multiple and dynamic. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................. viii Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Current study ....................................................................................... 1 1.3 Scope .................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Initial considerations ........................................................................... 9 1.5 Overview ............................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2 Language Maintenance and Shift ................................................... 17 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 17 2.2 Language maintenance and shift as fields of inquiry .......................... 17 2.3 Research traditions ............................................................................... 20 2.3.1 Typological approaches ............................................................... 21 2.3.2 Social network approaches ......................................................... 24 2.3.3 Domain approaches .................................................................... 28 2.3.4 Language attitude approaches .................................................... 32 2.3.5 Ethnolinguistic vitality ................................................................ 37 2.3.6 Verticalization ............................................................................. 40 2.3.7 Core values .................................................................................. 41 2.3.8 Language and identity ................................................................ 42 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 49 Chapter 3 Pennsylvania Dutch language maintenance and shift .................... 51 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 51 3.2 Pennsylvania Dutch speech community .............................................. 51 3.3 Anabaptist history ................................................................................ 55 3.4 Pennsylvania Dutch maintenance and shift ........................................ 62 3.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 69 Chapter 4 Methodology .................................................................................... 70 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 70 4.2 Interviews ............................................................................................. 70 4.3 Participant observation ........................................................................ 74 4.4 Questionnaires ...................................................................................... 77 4.5 Matched-guise tests .............................................................................. 92 4.6 Additional instruments ........................................................................ 95 vi 4.7 Research instruments for this study .................................................... 99 4.7.1 Interview ...................................................................................... 100 4.7.2 Participant observation ............................................................... 104 4.7.3 Sociohistorical sources ................................................................ 106 4.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 107 Chapter 5 Maple Grove, Allensville, and Locust Grove Amish-Mennonite groups ......................................................................................................... 108 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 108 5.2 Amish-Mennonite origins .................................................................... 110 5.3 Nonlinguistic changes .......................................................................... 112 5.3.1 Maple Grove Amish-Mennonite .................................................. 113 5.3.2 Allensville Amish-Mennonite ..................................................... 115 5.3.3 Locust Grove Conservative Unaffiliated ..................................... 117 5.4 Language and identity among Amish-Mennonites .............................. 123 5.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 139 Chapter 6 Beachy Amish-Mennonites ............................................................. 141 6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 141 6.2 Beachy Amish origins ........................................................................... 142 6.3 Big Valley‟s Beachy Amish .................................................................... 144 6.3.1 Nonlinguistic changes ................................................................. 145 6.3.2 Language and identity among Beachy Amish-Mennonites ....... 157 6.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 170 Chapter 7 Conclusion ....................................................................................... 171 7.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 171 7.2 Language and the Amish-Mennonites ................................................. 171 7.3 Identity and the Amish-Mennonites .................................................... 177 7.4 Areas of future research ........................................................................ 183 7.5 Role of language in identity .................................................................. 185 Appendix: List of narrators for the Oral History Project ................................
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