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Speaking Pittsburghese: the Story of a Dialect Barbara Johnstone (2013)

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Speaking Pittsburghese: the Story of a Dialect Barbara Johnstone (2013) Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print) Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online) Review Speaking Pittsburghese: The story of a dialect Barbara Johnstone (2013) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 266 ISBN 978-0-19-994570-2 (Paperback) Reviewed by Holman Tse The northeastern US city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the setting of Barbara Johnstone’s book about the story of a very distinctive dialect of American English popularly referred to as Pittsburghese. It is a dialect characterized by a set of lexical items such as the word gumband (‘rubber band’), a set of phonological features such as /aw/ monophthongization (as in the word downtown [daːːnta n], also spelled as dahntahn), and morphosyntactic features such as the need/want + X’ed construction (ex: this needs washed vs. this needs to be washed in Standard English). Yet, what makes this dialect special is more than simply its linguistic features. As Johnstone shows, Pittsburghese is also special in how it came in to being, in how people have become aware of its existence, and in how people talk about it. A common theme that resonates throughout the book is that Pittsburghers talk a lot about Pittsburghese. Why is this so? How did this formerly unnoticed way of speaking become so consciously linked to local identity? Johnstone addresses these questions by examining the dialect from multiple angles. Each chapter presents a different piece of this captivating story. The story begins with a linguistic description of Pittsburgh speech in Chapter 1. Here, Johnstone makes an important distinction between Pittsburgh speech, which refers to the local dialect as it is actually spoken, and Pittsburghese, which refers to the dialect ‘as it is locally imagined’ (p. 17). The differences are clearly outlined in more than a dozen pages of tables that list features of both Pittsburgh speech and Pittsburghese. Many of the lexical, phonological, and morphosyntactic Affiliation University of Pittsburgh, USA e-mail: [email protected] SOLS VOL 9.2-3 2015 341–344 doi: 10.1558/sols.v9i2.26683 © 2015, EQUINOX PUBLISHING 342 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES features that characterize Pittsburgh speech are not even noticed by speakers. Yet, people also describe noticeable features that are not unique to Pittsburgh as part of Pittsburghese. What is important, Johnstone argues, is that Pittsburghese is more than simply about a set of features. It is also about ‘how people act, how they interact, and how they experience the world’ (p. 35). The theoretical framework of the book, presented in Chapter 2, is grounded in cultural geography and semiotics. Johnstone follows recent scholarship in cultural geography by treating place as a social construct rather than as simply a physical location. Her approach is also phenomenological in its treatment of place as something that individuals experience. Yet, at the same time, Johnstone also considers material aspects of place as tied to topography and economics. The model of semiotics used is one that builds on the work of linguistic anthro- pologists. Key concepts include indexicality (Silverstein, 2003; Eckert, 2008), which refers to a relationship between signs and meaning, and enregisterment (Agha, 2003), which refers to the process through which linguistic forms become linked with a social meaning. The explanation of how Pittsburgh speech became indexically linked to the city of Pittsburgh and how certain features consequently became enregistered as Pittsburghese begins in Chapter 3 with an overview of the history of the region. The first major group of English speakers in southwestern Pennsylvania were the Scotch-Irish who arrived in the 18th century. This set the model of English for subsequent generations of Pittsburghers, including the many Eastern European immigrant groups that settled in the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These immigrants came primarily for employment opportunities in the steel factories, which would transform Pittsburgh into one of the wealthiest cities in America. Throughout much of this period, however, the mountainous topo- graphy of southwestern Pennsylvania isolated residents from the rest of the country making it possible for local speech to diverge from varieties of English spoken elsewhere. Then came increased mobility during World War II and even more mobility following the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s when many Pittsburghers lost their jobs and moved out of the region. Johnstone argues that the socio-economic history and increased mobility in the second half of the 20th century created the social and material conditions for many Pittsburghers to notice differences in speech. Yet, different Pittsburghers have come to notice Pittsburgh speech in different ways. Some hardly notice anything distinctive at all. Johnstone’s phenomeno- logical approach is highlighted in Chapter 4, which discusses experimental studies showing how different people perceive the actual features that are part of the dialect in different ways. These differences, however, are not always about REVIEW: TSE 343 correlations with particular demographic groups. Johnstone argues that indi- vidual experiences can reveal many complexities about variation and change that are not clearly visible when the focus is on sociolinguistic groups. Chapter 5 focuses on how the links between language and place are made in social interaction. This is illustrated in an analysis of sociolinguistic interviews as well as an online discussion forum in which speakers talk about Pittsburghese. The local dialect has become a popular topic of conversation among Pittsburghers whenever they discuss their city. Some have positive nostalgic feelings while others have negative opinions about the dialect because of a perceived link to working-class life. Yet, in all cases, there is a clear link between dialect and place. Talk about talk is, thus, a locally meaningful social practice that creates Pitts- burghese even if people have different attitudes about it. This social practice also contributes to the spread of ideas about this unique dialect. Chapter 6 moves from face-to-face interaction to a history of public discourse about Pittsburghese. An important theme in this chapter is the question of expertise, an issue that has frequently come into play in public discussions about the dialect. Johnstone shows that from the 1950s to the present, there have been a variety of actors including linguists, native Pittsburghers, and residents who moved to Pittsburgh from elsewhere who have all made claims to expertise about Pittsburgh speech. While frequent contestation no doubt contributes to dialect enregisterment, Johnstone argues that there are also material constraints to this process based on available technology. For example, printed publications such as newspapers and folk dictionaries were made possible in the second half of the 20th century. Yet, they had limited interactive potential compared to interactive websites in the early 21st century, which have made it possible for people to talk publicly about Pittsburghese in a way that was not previously possible. Chapter 7 describes commodification as another way in which Pittsburghese becomes enregistered. This is exemplified in some of the products that have been sold over the years, including t-shirts that have lists of Pittsburghese words and even toy dolls that speak Pittsburghese. These commodities have become popular consumer items for Pittsburghers whether they are still living in the city or have moved elsewhere and have become nostalgic about their former home. They provide yet another way in which ideas about Pittsburghese circulate within a capitalist economy. Chapter 8 presents yet another angle of the Pittsburghese story by focusing on performance of the dialect. This chapter includes excerpts from sociolinguistic interviews and radio shows in which people consciously perform Pittsburghese by exaggerating features associated with the dialect. Johnstone argues that such oral performances can both expand and loosen the forms that become linked to 344 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES Pittsburghese. This is due to the very nature of linguistic performance, which Johnstone describes as something that ‘calls attention to itself, putting on display not only what the message means but also how’ (p. 226). Thus, while some listeners may focus more on the message, others may focus more on the how. Yet, there are multiple ways of interpreting both the meaning and the how. So Pittsburghese features linked to Pittsburgh the place could alternatively be interpreted as indexically linked to gender or to working-class identity, or the performance could simply be seen as something funny. The creative nature of performance creates multiple possibilities allowing Pittsburghese to circulate into new territory. Finally, Chapter 9 discusses the history of the word yinz (a second person plural pronoun), a word that originally was not noticed by Pittsburghers as anything special. In recent years, however, it has become the most visible and well-known feature of the dialect. The contexts of usage have expanded. New forms have also emerged such as yinzer and Yinzburgh. Even non-native Pittsburghers who have moved to the city have found the word yinz to be hip. By showing how this single word has taken on so many new meanings and usages, it is clear that Pittsburghese has a future even if dialect levelling has meant fewer people speaking with the features traditionally associated with the dialect. In a world in which people talk about globalization
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