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LANGUAGE USE in an OLD ORDER AMISH COMMUNITY in KANSAS by Jörg Meindl

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LANGUAGE USE in an OLD ORDER AMISH COMMUNITY in KANSAS by Jörg Meindl LANGUAGE USE IN AN OLD ORDER AMISH COMMUNITY IN KANSAS BY Jörg Meindl Submitted to the graduate degree program in Germanic Languages and Literatures of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________________ William D. Keel, Chairperson _________________________________ Nina Vyatkina, Committee Member _________________________________ Stephen Dickey, Committee Member _________________________________ Ernst Dick, Committee Member _________________________________ James Hartman, Committee Member _________________________________ Peter Grund, Committee Member Date defended:_____________________ ii The Dissertation Committee for Jörg Meindl certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: LANGUAGE USE IN AN OLD ORDER AMISH COMMUNITY IN KANSAS Committee: _________________________________ William D. Keel, Chairperson _________________________________ Nina Vyatkina, Committee Member _________________________________ Stephen Dickey, Committee Member _________________________________ Ernst Dick, Committee Member _________________________________ James Hartman, Committee Member _________________________________ Peter Grund, Committee Member Date approved: ______________ iii Abstract Old Order Amish are a religious group with three languages in its linguistic repertoire: Pennsylvania German (PG), American English (AE), and Amish High German (AHG). A considerable amount of research examined PG-speaking communities, analyzing the causes of language change (whether it is caused by language contact or internal processes), the factors determining language choice in situations like family or work, and the spread of linguistic innovations between speech islands. However, few studies examine the language alternation within speech situations, language use in the worship service, or language use at the level of individual utterances (discourse level). Furthermore, rural communities are underrepresented in research on PG and few studies exist on areas with a low density of PG-speakers. The present study addresses these research deficits by describing and analyzing an Old Order Amish speech community in Anderson County, Kansas. The speech community is geographically distant from other PG-speakers. Data has been collected through interviews, translation tasks, and participant observation. The present study analyzes four major areas of the Anderson County speech community: First, the study describes the social structure as well as cultural and religious norms of the community. These factors influence language use, linguistic change, and communicative contacts to PG and AE-speakers outside of the speech community. The present study sets out to test with ethnographic methods how many contacts exist to other PG-speakers in geographically distant speech communities. Second, a detailed analysis of the linguistic structure of Anderson County PG will be iv provided, employing comparative linguistic methods, with focus on language change and contact to AE and other varieties of PG. It will be examined whether changes in Anderson County PG are caused by internal processes or language contact. Third, two theoretical models of language choice, the domain model and the network model, are tested with the data from the Anderson County speech community. Based on these data, limitations of domain and network models are demonstrated. Finally, the sociolinguistic structure of the worship service, its theological and social functions, and the language use in this setting are analyzed with ethnography of speaking and discourse analysis methods. Focus will be on the sermons. The data from Anderson County reveal a communicative problem in the sermons, the "preacher's dilemma": the preachers quote and interpret the scriptures which are in AHG. However, preachers and other congregation members have only limited AHG-proficiency and, thus, do not easily understand all words or phrases used. Switching to AE is restricted by the sociolinguistic norms and PG does not provide the necessary lexical equivalents of the words in questions. The preachers manage this dilemma by employing the communication strategies metalinguistic remarks and self-translations. The analysis of the Anderson County speech community shows that the community has complex contacts to other PG-speaking communities and undergoes a change in the employment structure that causes an increase in AE-contacts. The linguistic data show little AE-influence beyond the lexicon, but ambivalent results regarding the influence from other varieties of PG. The tested models of language choice prove to be suitable for some settings, but not applicable for complex and v highly regulated speech situations like the worship service. In the sermons, the role of the preacher and the theological function of the sermons supersede other factors of language choice including sociolinguistic norms. The use of codeswitching-based communication strategies in the sermons shows that violations of sociolinguistic norms are accepted if they serve the main function of the sermons and are kept to the necessary minimum. The communication strategies are necessary repair mechanisms for communicative problems. Thus, both problem and solution are connected to the specific structure of multilingualism in the speech community. Despite the regulated ceremonial setting and in contrast to implication from past research, the sermons prove to be dynamic speech events in which all languages of the repertoire fulfill important functions. The dissertation addresses research deficits in four different areas that have little been addressed in research so far: First, a profile of language structure and language use in a isolated, rural PG-speech community is presented. Second, hypotheses on the sources of language change in PG are tested. Third, the language use in the worship service is described in detail and, fourth, language use on the discourse level is analyzed. vi For my parents Annette Meindl and Gerhard Meindl vii Acknowledgements Many people have contributed to the success of this research project. I want to mention first those who remain anonymous, but are the most important for this project: I am deeply indebted to all informants in the Anderson County Amish community who donated their time, shared their knowledge, and welcomed me in their houses. During two years of research, friendships have grown. I am very grateful for the loving support of parents and brothers. My parents made this all possible – thank you so much for giving me this opportunity, for all your patience and help, for the freedom to follow my interests. Many friends have supported me throughout the time and provided crucial support. I am deeply thankful for my great friend Summer Eglinski. She has been a great source of strength and motivation. Scott Seeger shared his friendship and expertise with me, many times. Regine Kroh provided advice and motivation and Bernadette Zacharias enabled me to get to Anderson County in times where I lacked car or horse and buggy. Certainly, this project could not have been completed without the mentorship of my adviser Professor William Keel. I also want to thank others who provided academic advice for the project, especially Nina Vyatkina, Carmen Taleghani- Nikazm. I owe much to Klaus Mattheier who introduced me to the world of dialect research and opened the door to Kansas for me. I also want to thank the Max Kade Foundation and the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures for financial support. viii Abbreviations AE = American English AHG = Amish High German CS = Codeswitching NHG = New High German OOA = Old Order Amish PG = Pennsylvania German ix Table of Contents Introduction 1 1) Desiderata in PG-Research 2 2) Informants and Data 4 3) Methodology 9 4) Structure of the Study 10 I) Ethnographic and Social Context 12 I.1) Pennsylvania Germans in Kansas 13 I.1.1) Research on German Speakers in Kansas 13 I.1.2) Migration and Settlement Patterns in Kansas 16 I.1.3) Concentrations of German Speakers in Kansas 19 I.1.4) The Connection of Anderson County with Reno County 22 I.1.5) Migration History of Old Order Amish in Kansas 24 I.2) Ethnographic Profile of Anderson County OOA 27 I.2.1) Settlement-structure today 28 I.2.2) Lifestyle and Social Norms (Ordnung) 29 I.2.3) Occupational Structure 32 I.2.4) Mobility 33 I.2.5) Education 35 I.2.6) Media 36 I.2.7) Worship services 38 I.3) Conclusion 39 II) Linguistic Profile of Anderson County PG 41 II.1) Syntax and Morphosyntax 42 II.1.1) Word Order 42 II.1.2) Relative Pronouns 45 II.1.3) Periphrastic /du:n/ 46 II.1.4) Infinitive constructions 48 II.1.5) Progressive 50 II.2) Case morphology 52 II.2.1) Case Reduction and Its Causes 52 II.2.2) Dative and Accusative Case 52 II.2.3) Causes of Case Merger 53 II.2.4) Expanded Use of the Object Case 54 II.3) Loan Words 55 II.3.1) Identifying Loan Words 55 II.3.2) Types of loans 56 II.3.3) Translating and Recalling Words 58 II.4) Morphology: Integration of Loans and Hybrids 59 II.4.1) Degree of integration 60 II.4.2) Inflection 61 II.4.3) Compound-Words 61 II.4.4) Homophones 62 x II.4.5) Semantic Transfers and Shifts 63 II.4.6) Phonologically Integrated Loans 65 II.5) Midwestern Pennsylvania German 65 II.5.1) Phonological Change: Monophthongization of /ei/ 66 II.5.2) Grammatical Change 68 II.5.3) Phonology and Lexicon 69 II.6) Amish High German and its Use 71 II.6.1)The Structure of Amish High German 71 II.6.2) The use of Amish High German 76
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