TITLE:
Folk-Linguistic Attitudes in Eastern Massachusetts
AUTHORS:
Rebecca Day Babcock
KEYWORDS:
Folk Linguistics, Language Attitudes, Masschusetts Dialects
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Linguistics,
Vol.4 No.3,
August
13,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Folk
linguistics attempts to study people’s beliefs and attitudes about language
through their metalinguistic statements, usually collected in a naturalistic
setting. Data was collected in a semistructured focus group setting with 11
white, middle- and working-class participants from Eastern Massachusetts. Participants
spoke freely about linguistic topics. The results showed that the group focused
their discussion on the speech of politicians (former Boston Mayor Tom Menino
to be exact), linguistic status markers, specific features (r- and g-dropping,
broad /a/), regions (local Massachusetts regions and Tennessee), and ethnicity
(Black and Hispanic). All topics were introduced by the participants, rather
than by the researcher.