Digital Commons @ George Fox University Faculty Publications - Department of World Department of World Languages, Sociology & Languages, Sociology & Cultural Studies Cultural Studies 1996 Oregonian Perceptions of American Regional Speech Laura Hartley George Fox University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/lang_fac Part of the Other Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Hartley, Laura, "Oregonian Perceptions of American Regional Speech" (1996). Faculty Publications - Department of World Languages, Sociology & Cultural Studies. Paper 13. http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/lang_fac/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of World Languages, Sociology & Cultural Studies at Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications - Department of World Languages, Sociology & Cultural Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. OREGONIAN PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICAN REGIONAL SPEECH By Laura C. Hartley A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Linguistics 1996 ABSTRACT OREGIONAN PERCEPTIONS OF AMERICAN REGIONAL SPEECH By Laura C. Hartley Although much is known about the varieties of American speech from a linguistic standpoint, less work has been done which examines folklinguistic attitudes and beliefs about those varieties. "Perceptual dialectology" studies have been done in several areas of the United States; however, no research to date has examined the perceptions of west-coast residents. In this study, the attitudes of Oregon residents towards American speech are examined through the use of hand-drawn maps and ratings of "degree of difference," "correctness," and "pleasantness." The results of the ratings data are analyzed primarily using Chi-Square Tests of Independence, Multi-Dimensional Scaling, and K-Means Cluster Analysis.