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© Copyright 2020 Michael Scanlon © Copyright 2020 Michael Scanlon Stylistic variation in African American Language: examining the social meaning of linguistic features in a Seattle community Michael Scanlon A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2020 Reading Committee: Alicia Beckford Wassink, Chair Richard Wright Sharon Hargus Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Linguistics University of Washington Abstract Stylistic variation in African American Language: Examining the social meaning of linguistic features in a Seattle community Michael Scanlon Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Alicia Beckford Wassink Department of Linguistics Linguistic features associated with African American Language (AAL) may have a large set of ideological and functional meanings beyond ethnic identity. While sociolinguists know a lot, comparatively, about regional and social differences in the use of features associated with AAL, we know less about how features associated with AAL operate in various interactions and situations. This study presents an opportunity to better understand features associated with AAL among speakers from the Pacific Northwest – specifically focusing on one multi-ethnic community of speakers who were raised in Yesler Terrace in Seattle, Washington. It situates phonetic and phonological variation at the intersection of ethnoracial identity, place, and style, analyzes stylistic (within-speaker) uses of linguistic features in interaction, and considers how individuals enact a range of identities using linguistic features associated with AAL in practice. The dissertation includes three analyses for this study: a descriptive analysis of vowel phonology among a sample of YT members, an Audience Design analysis of stylistic shifts in a single speaker, and a Speaker Design analysis of four speakers, looking at shifts in their use of a linguistic variable across the span of their respective interviews. The study contributes to our understanding of ethnicity and vowel variation in the Pacific Northwest, and finds that African American speakers in YT distinguish themselves from their European American peers by drawing on both super-regional features associated with AAL and features that are understood more as broad regional features. It shows that features associated with AAL can be utilized as a resource for meaning-making, outside of merely signaling some aspect of ethnicity. The study finds that /ɑɪ/ reduction in particular is available for YT members across ethnic lines as a linguistic resource, and argues that use of reduced /ɑɪ/ within YT operates, to some extent, independently of its group-associational meaning as an AAL variant. The study asserts that reduced /ɑɪ/, within the context of the YT interviews, can be used to signal particular working- class attitudes and values associated with growing up in Yesler Terrace. It argues more broadly that the use of linguistic features associated with AAL can be influenced by not only the ethnic makeup of a community, but also by community members’ ethnoracial attitudes, community values, and by a conversation’s interactional context. This work suggests that within multi-ethnic communities, the use of features associated with AAL may be more flexible, granular, and unbounded, and the social meaning of variants associated with AAL may be tied to locally salient values and identities. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Problem Statement .......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Goals ............................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Data ................................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Analyses .......................................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Overview of Chapters ..................................................................................................... 6 1.6 Notation........................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2. Background – Stylistic Variation .................................................................................. 7 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Sociolinguistic approaches to stylistic variation ............................................................. 7 2.2.1 Attention to Speech model .......................................................................................... 8 2.2.2 Audience Design model .............................................................................................. 9 2.2.3 Speaker Design models ............................................................................................. 10 2.3 Metaphorical style shifts ............................................................................................... 16 2.3.1 Types of stylistic shifting .......................................................................................... 16 2.3.2 Conversational narratives, cohesion, and the need for analytic induction ................ 17 2.4 Verbal repertoires and speech communities ................................................................. 18 2.5 Relationship between style and identity ....................................................................... 22 i 2.6 Indexicality and the social meaning of linguistic variables .......................................... 23 2.7 The current study .......................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 3. Background – African American Language ................................................................ 26 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 26 3.1.1 Overview of chapter .................................................................................................. 26 3.1.2 Race and ethnicity ..................................................................................................... 26 3.1.3 Nomenclature ............................................................................................................ 26 3.2 Approaches to AAL ...................................................................................................... 28 3.2.1 AAL as a dialect or inventory of features ................................................................. 28 3.2.2 Expanding the dialect/inventory approach................................................................ 31 3.2.3 AAL as a linguistic resource ..................................................................................... 34 3.3 Studies of stylistic variation in AAL ............................................................................ 37 3.3.1 Effect of formality..................................................................................................... 37 3.3.2 Audience/referee design............................................................................................ 37 3.3.3 Complex multivalent identity ................................................................................... 39 3.3.4 Stance and alignment ................................................................................................ 41 3.3.5 Individual differences ............................................................................................... 44 3.3.6 Summary ................................................................................................................... 45 3.4 Summary and remaining questions ............................................................................... 46 Chapter 4. Background – Yesler Terrace ...................................................................................... 48 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 48 4.2 History........................................................................................................................... 48 ii 4.3 The current study sample .............................................................................................. 51 4.3.1 Demography .............................................................................................................. 51 4.3.2 The interview context ............................................................................................... 52 4.3.3 Characterizing YT ..................................................................................................... 54 4.4 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 5. Linguistic variables ....................................................................................................
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